When the Sun Shone Warm upon Their Faces
by BelhavenOnTap
Summary: My take on what brought the brothers to the States, what honed their lingual skills and what brought them to their subsequent lives. Newbie here, so please be gentle
1. Untimely Awakening

When the Sun Shone Warm upon Their Faces

A/N: My take on what brought the brothers to the States, what honed their lingual skills and what brought them to their subsequent lives.

Newbie here, so please be gentle…

Chapter 1: Untimely awakening

When she thought back to her first exposure to all things MacManus, she figured it had to have been when their crews were assigned and then they had to pair up, have a question and answer icebreaker that would have been uncomfortable if it hadn't been for the unassuming, transparently sincere guy with whom she would be spending two weeks in the mountains of North Carolina in this freshman orientation program that had seemed like such a good idea when all the acceptance papers arrived from Duke University. While backpacking for two weeks, students would undergo mental and physical challenges that would prepare them for the challenges of college, or so said the brochure.

Once arriving and seeing a flurry of totally new, unknown people, she was sure she should have stayed at home the extra two weeks to prepare herself for the shock of leaving home. And then she was paired with Connor MacManus to sit and just talk. Good grief, she thought, about what? He's not going to care about what I have to say. He's going to think I'm a total idiot. I feel like a total idiot and---

"I'm Connor." He said softly, when they stepped over to a spot on the lawn in the lovely campus gardens. She heard the Irish accent and it distracted her from her worries of wondering if she could carry a sixty pound backpack up mountain trails and if she these people were going to think she was weird and how nice it would have been to be back home playing in the garden with George. She already missed George's wiry coat, the way he smelled and how he could hear the refrigerator door open from anywhere in the house. She had not slept a night without George since she was eleven years old.

But an Irish accent. She loved Jack Higgins novels although she knew she should never admit to liking fluffy spy novels in such a supposed intellectual atmosphere, surrounded by all these prep school babies. Aristotle, Joyce, and Faulkner were the kosher reading material. Oh, she had delved into those authors and enjoyed them too but now she was brimming with questions about the IRA and the split with the PIRA. She wondered if he was from Ulster. Had he ever seen the endangered wild orchids in bloom there?

More importantly, Connor's voice was gentle, his countenance open and his eyes intent. Blue eyes, searching hers, piercing hers actually, looking for something. She got the feeling he was as nervous as she was. Probably more, she thought. He's thousands of miles from home after all.

Good grief, how could you be nervous when he was smiling at you? That smile was so unassuming and genuine. Then again, how could you not be nervous with that slightly shy but genuine smile directed at you?

Gorgeous, he was gorgeous. Not cute, not good-looking, not hot as her doofy friends back home would call guys. No, Connor was just outright gorgeous. So it was bad enough she was going to have to make small talk but also to have her sexual awakening at the same time. Just perfect, she thought, I'm just eighteen and my stupid hormones are kicking in. This was supposed to happen to women when they approached thirty, she thought, starting to get angry at this unplanned physiological response occurring within her as she stared back at this absolutely magnificent boy--because he was a boy--with his perfect deep blue eyes, perfect honey-hued hair, perfect sculpted cheekbones, perfect full lips, perfect—don't even start looking at the body, Leah.

"I'm Leah." She offered, a little scared that he could see exactly what was going on inside of her at that moment.

It must have been at that moment that their bond was made. Even though his gorgeousness loomed between them, although he never knew it, their conversation flowed as easily as a river. Immediately, they both confessed how nervous they were, full of second thoughts about the adventure ahead. Which one, the backpacking trip or college? Both, they agreed. When it was their turn to report to the entire crew what they had learned about each other, they had been laughing like idiots and still fully engrossed in their conversation, practically finishing each other's sentences. Glad yer here, Leah Winslow, Connor said, as they walked back to the huddle of their crew. She looked into his eyes at that moment, saw that he meant it and started to think she might be glad she was too.

To the rest of the group, they both just reported simple demographic facts: Leah was from Charleston, South Carolina and Conner was from near Dublin, Ireland—not Ulster and no, he had never seen the endangered orchids but they sounded intriguing. They shared no anecdotes or any of the other conversation they had shared. That conversation belonged to them and no one else. Something unspoken that she never could put her finger on dictated it.

On the trip, they stayed together, never ceasing their talk. They never ran out of things to talk about. Whether it was Connor's life back in Ireland, Leah's life in the US or Connor seeing his first hummingbird or laughing about how filthy they were or just anything, they chattered away. They slept next to one another every night under the tarp. After being yelled at to shut up and go to sleep, many nights they moved their sleeping bags out from under the tarp to watch the stars and talk before they eventually fell asleep.

Leah had no brothers and had never had a boyfriend, but somehow, she was perfectly content to wake up with Connor snuggled up to her every morning, his limbs slung over hers and face buried in her neck. He could make her laugh until she had a side stitch. Of course, everyone in the small group quickly came to love Connor with his good nature, willingness to carry the heaviest camping gear in his pack and endless supply of wry comments in the accent so different than their own, but he stuck close to Leah, and it made things so much easier. Suddenly she wasn't nervous at all about starting college, being miles away from home and starting this new chapter of her life. She didn't even care that she hadn't showered for nearly two weeks, about the endless amount of bug bites and the most bizarre of all: going to the bathroom while backpacking.

When the trowel kit was brought out, she and Connor both looked at the gardening spade in the plastic bag with a roll of toilet paper and a lighter, then they looked at each other. What do ya think the lighter's for? Leah shrugged. Then the crew was instructed that they were to dig a six inch deep hole, crap in it, then burn the toilet paper.

She felt Connor's finger push gently up on her jaw, which had apparently dropped out of its own accord.

Best ta laugh about it, he mumbled. Don't recall this in the fuckin' brochure, do ya?


	2. The Night of the Blueberries

Then the Night of the Blueberries came.

August was the prime ripening time of the wild blueberry bushes in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and Connor was infatuated with the blueberries, the idea of just reaching out along the trail and grabbing a handful. Blueberries, he explained, were not something you had everyday in Ireland.

When they had stopped hiking on that fateful day, he asked Leah if she wanted to go pick blueberries for pancakes the crew would cook for breakfast the next day. So the two set off to fill the dutch oven and wound up eating almost as many as they picked. In the middle of dinner, Leah set her food down and grabbed the much despised trowel kit and took off in a run. Blueberries, the others laughed.

After a few minutes of violent diarrhea and three holes later, she heard Connor calling her name. Leah, gotta have tha kit. Can you wait a minute? Could you wait a minute when ya went tearin' off? I can't leave what I'm doing right now, Connor. I'll come to ye then. No way. Leah, no choice, gotta have tha kit. Shit. Yea, quite literally, I think. Oh, shite, sorry, Leah, looks like I'll be joinin' ya here. My compliments, looks like ye picked a good spot too.

And before she could die of embarrassment or even really argue, Connor had dropped his trousers and had joined her on the recently fallen log she had fortuitously found.

In retrospect, perhaps she should have expected it. There was no embarrassment, only laughter. He simply proclaimed his farts the victors. She retorted that he had missed out on the best of hers. New hole, he would shout and they would move further down the log to an unused spot. I think part of me spine just left tha buildin'. Connor, that was a major squeaker. Bigger than yers.

However, apparently it was Murphy MacManus that was the grand champion of farting. Rarely did a conversation not raise the subject of his twin, who had been put on another crew, and who no doubt was not perched on a log shitting his guts out.

Murphy was the younger of the two fraternal twins, she was told, and always instigating various pranks not necessarily designed to get the two of them into never-ending jams in their small town near Dublin although that was the usual result. Secondary school had been spent bailing his brother out of trouble for his practical jokes on their fellow students and even the poor nuns. Sister Helen never did figure out to look in the light fixture for the eggs. According to Connor, it was always up to him to talk them out of a bind, while Murphy just smiled angelically. And somehow Connor was always the one that got in trouble while Murphy inevitably got away with everything, damn him. But Connor spoke with great affection for his twin. They would be rooming together in the dorms. Often on the trail he would say, wonder what Murph's doin or wonder if Murph's seen this.

After the diarrhea had passed, Leah and Connor agreed on two things: that the area behind the log was a major biohazard and that friends who shit together stay together. Naturally, Leah was not letting herself process the idea that she had not only just farted in front of a male, but had the worst case of diarrhea of her entire life in front of one. But did it really matter? It was Connor.

She also was not letting herself process the idea that Connor was the most gorgeous thing she had ever witnessed, or was at least trying not to digest this idea. Now she understood her friends back home going absolutely loopy over a guy. Of course, there was no time to sit back and ponder him. He roped her into everything and she spent most of her time laughing at him and making him laugh. He told her one night when they were sleeping out on a very uncomfortable rock after being exiled for excessive late night chatter yet again that he had been so afraid there would be no one to talk to on this trip since Murphy would not be on his crew. He thanked her and put his arms around her and she made herself tell him she would fart on him if he didn't let go. He called her bluff. She couldn't fart and he warned her not to try too hard after the lentil and bulgur stew they had eaten for dinner that night. Ya might fill yer sleepin' bag. All she could do was laugh at him then spend the rest of the night, wrapped up in his arms thinking he had the capacity to severely impact her career plans and worse, her ability to concentrate. Trying to think of him as a human surrogate for George didn't really cut the mustard.


	3. Meeting Murph

They met up with Murphy's crew half way through the trip at the base camp for rock climbing. Rock climbing was one of those mental and physical challenges touted by the now famed brochure that would prepare them for virtually anything. Leah had not been looking forward to the rock climbing although Connor seemed excited about it. Of course, Connor seemed excited about it. Connor, she had learned, was always in a good mood. Nothing made him grumpy: hunger, exhaustion, bee stings, ticks, or blueberry-induced diarrhea. The boy was always in a good mood.

This could not be said for his twin.

When they approached the climbing area, they began hearing shouts of "Well, suck me arse" and "Ye fuckin' rock piece of shite" and "Yer bugger". Connor threw his head back and began to laugh without explanation. He tossed off his pack and ran to find the person in charge to ask if he could go up to the top of the rock. Receiving a puzzled look, he said with wide innocent eyes that Leah knew well were dancing with mischief, "I want ta encourage me brother."

So from below, Leah watched as a slender helmeted figure in a very uncomfortable-looking waist harness slowly scaled a massive rock face. Well, he would make a bit of progress up then lose his grip. Her suspicions about the harness were confirmed with a shout of "Christ, this harness is fuckin' castratin' me!" when the figure slipped and spun around suspended by the rope for a few moments. Encouraging shouts of "You can do it, Murphy" were met with "I don't give a flyin' fuck about it. Just get me off this fuckin' rock for Christ fuckin' sake!" Then she looked up and saw Connor waving at her. And he was grinning like a Cheshire Cat.

"Lord's fuckin' name!" Connor yelled, and the helmeted figure immediately stared up the rock. "Oi, Murph, whatcha doin down there?"

"Connor?"

"Aye. Looks like ye can't climb that rock to save yer life. Ye look bloody ridiculous."

"Fuck ye, Connor."

Then Connor started pelting Murphy with some well-aimed pebbles. The others down below were horrified but Leah laughed and knew exactly what Connor was doing.

"I'm gonna kill ye when I get up there, Connor. Yer a fuckin dead man."

"I reckon I'll die of old age before ye get here, Murph. Could be like old Rip Van Winkle and take meself a little nap."

Murphy's pace picked up considerably and he scurried to the top with a newfound speed. Instead of hugging the person who had belayed him up the rock as was customary or undoing his harness, he dove on his brother, fists flying.

"Murph, Murph, turn around and look, ye great idiot. Look at the view. It's bloody outstandin'." Connor hollered, obviously sick of the punches he had endured just to get his beloved brother up the rock. Murphy had him pinned on the ground.

Murphy glared at Connor. "Fuckin' nature boy."

"Lemme up, Murph. We'll get that torture belt off ya and walk down off this bloody thing the easy way. There's a short path 'round back." Connor laughed, getting his arms free to hug his brother's neck. "Glad ta see ya, Murph, ya bastard!"

"No," interrupted the belayer, "he's got to rappel down."

"Ah, fuck that noise." Murphy said, his eyes never leaving Connor's.

"It's only 100 feet. It's relaxing after the climb. Really zen." The belayer said enthusiastically.

Murphy rolled his eyes at Connor and made a not so furtive masturbatory gesture. From the moment Murphy cleared the top of the rock, Connor knew his twin was having a crappy time on the trip. If Murphy had not have wanted to go, Connor would have gladly stayed back at home and helped out Uncle Sibeal for two more weeks before leaving. And the church needed repainting too.

"Sounds fantastic, but I think we're just goin ta walk down the way I came up." Connor told the girl with a smile. Smile first. Hopefully that would suffice. He didn't want to get confrontational, especially since Murph was about to lose it. That's when everything went to hell. "If that's alright with ya, of course. Murph, let's get that contraption off ya."

"Well, normally, the crewlings rappel down." She answered, and Connor could see the girl was oscillating.

"Maybe this would be a good time ta stray from the normal." Connor said, hoping she hadn't detected the sarcasm, then mumbled to Murphy to take the fucking harness off **now**. Murph was mumbling that the fucking harness was caught in his nuts and was going to have to be surgically removed. "We can help ya carry your ropes down, if ya like. I'm Connor, by the way. This is m'brother, Murphy."

"Real fuckin' smooth there, Connor. These fuckin' ropes weigh a fuckin' ton." Murphy grumbled, as they hauled the ropes down the trail leading into the base camp.

Connor smacked him on the back of the head. "Ya didn't have ta drop 100 feet down one o'these ropes, now did ya? So shut it."

"Are ya havin' fun on this shite?" Murphy asked, letting the smack to the head go. He knew he deserved it. His brother was going to have a black eye tomorrow from the punch he had thrown when he got to the top of the rock.

"Aye, it's great. Could use a shower, but it's bloody fantastic."

"What are the people like on your crew?"

"Mostly tossers, but there's this girl, Leah. Yer gonna love her." Connor told his brother.

Murphy stopped in his tracks and turned to stare at his brother. "Oh, bloody hell, a girl?"

"Oh, fuck off, Murph. Yer gonna love her."

Leah was perfect, Connor thought. He had been relieved when they had been paired for the initial chat session. He had summed up everyone on the twelve person crew and decided he liked the look of her most. She remained quiet while the others jabbered on about what other Top Ten schools they could have attended, their astronomically high SAT scores, and their prospective majors. He liked her short pixie haircut, which was different than all the other girls with their long hair. He liked her emerald green eyes which kept darting back and forth to all the others and the enormous smile which lit up her petite facial features. She was real, he knew instantly, not some pretentious asshole who was trying to cover up being nervous with meaningless accomplishments. And the more time he spent with her, the more perfect he saw she really was. She was so sweet, her nature so gentle and kind, always encouraging the others on the crew to drink more water and to use sunscreen. She observed others and looked after everyone, almost like a shepherd, he thought. You should be a doctor, he told her, when she stayed awake to watch him after he had been stung by six bees. Blueberries again, this time harvesting them near a beehive. She held the pen full of epinephrine in her hand in case the oral dose of antihistamine did not take care of the histimines building in his system. No, I like plants better than people. And that was another thing he loved about her. They would be walking along and she would identify all the plants for him and point out different birds, lizards and snakes which he had never seen before growing up in Ireland.

And then there was her sense of humor. Murph was definitely going to love her.

"What are ya grinnin' about?" Murphy asked.

"Just a hypothesis, little brother. Just a hypothesis." Connor chuckled, knowing in a few minutes his hypothesis would begin to be tested.

"Not yer little brother, retard."

Murphy began to chatter on about how the people on his crew were mostly wankers, pompous rich Americans, spoiled as all shite and completely unaware of anything going on around them. Connor let his twin rage as they walked and did not remind him that not everyone had seen the things they had and they did not should not wear their struggles like medals. Nor did he remind Murph what their mother had told them: to be young, to focus on their studies and enjoy the peace in their lives. Murph was just in one of his moods. He had gotten scared going up the rock and was puffed up like a harmless toad.

Hypothesis tested. Poor Murph, Connor thought to himself, highly amused. He didn't stand a chance. Well, not poor Murph, he corrected himself, poor Leah. When he introduced them, Leah charmed his brother back into the Murphy MacManus that none of these fuckers had met, a Murphy that Connor was more used to seeing. She told him how much she had been waiting to meet him after all the stories Connor had been telling her and oh no, he had skinned his knee pretty badly on the rock. And geez, the rock looked really enormous and she really didn't want to go up it, she said, as she brought her ever-present aloe vera gel out her pack and started dabbing it on him, as she would have on Connor, with whom there could never be any more boundaries after the Night of The Blueberries. Murphy flinched at her unexpected touch, his eyes flying wide, and Leah apologized, saying she should have known that the spot would be tender. Tender, me arse, Connor thought and said he would be right back, insinuating a need to take a leak, but mostly he wanted to slip away and let out some triumphant laughter. Ha, Murph, lucky for you that she's not the kind of girl to look at your junk, Connor chuckled to himself, watching Murph shift around. Connor watched as Leah took a seat across from Murphy and started asking him questions, no doubt her eyes wide and lulling the Murphy Monster into submission. He was about to go back to them but it was just too much fun to watch Murphy shed of all his bravado and be something close to himself and maybe even something a little new. See ya idiot, he thought to Murphy, we're going to meet some good people here. And you've just met the best one.

Okay, time to go back, he thought, seeing his twin get a hold of himself sufficiently to smile at Leah, the smile that had been known to part the legs of far too many girls back home—not that Leah would ever fall for that shite.

Yet Connor hurried his pace back to them, not thinking about his reasons for hurrying or why he sat very close to Leah when he returned and began telling the epic tale of The Night of The Blueberries.

"I really like Murphy, Connor." Leah told him pleasantly, as they walked back to their crew after saying their goodbyes to Murphy. "You guys are so lucky to have each other. I think he was really glad to see you even if he socked you—but you did throw rocks at him."

"I had to get him up there somehow."

Connor gave her a shrug and a grin. The eye was starting to show the bruise. Everyone was talking about how the brothers had gotten in a fight. The rest of her crew was pretty turned off by Murphy's behavior and a couple of them were saying there was no way they were going rock climbing tomorrow.

"I need to get aloe vera on your eye. I just didn't want to embarrass your brother. I thought he might be feeling guilty about hitting you."

"I'm okay, Leah." He said and put his arm around her shoulders.

She liked it when he did that. If he wanted to put his arm around her, sleep next to her, and knock her knee with his whenever they sat next to one another, that was fine. He was who he was and she would fight her hormones, damn them.


	4. Settling In

Murphy was in much better spirits when he was back from that fucking nightmare of bugbites, hiking no less than eight miles a day with a fucking seventy pound monstrosity on his back, and eating food that tasted worse than theirs Ma's. He was back with his brother, who understood why they were at university: to become wiser, stronger, and better able to make a contribution to the world. He liked it that the chapel was always open and he could go and pray in the beautiful place whenever he wanted. That helped in this environment of gross materialism, frivolous cares and pure idiocy. The students were intelligent enough but that didn't mean they weren't fucking idiots. What the fuck were all these stupid fraternities about, buying your friends? College republicans? There was a fucking club for everything. Murph had no time for clubs. The guys in their dorm tried to cajole them to go out to kegs and rush the frats. They went a couple of times but the beer tasted like water and within a half hour, he would find himself griping at Connor that they should leave. He would have surveyed the room and spotted which guys were going to date rape which nearly passed out girls with perfect clarity. Connor would tell him he that he didn't know any such thing, but somehow Murphy knew that he did know. But Connor would leave with him and they would walk the campus and usually wind up at Leah's, where she would be reading or making those incredible botanical drawings, which she would usually wind up throwing in the trash can. Murph had asked her if he could have some of her discards and she said no but a few days later gave him a drawing of an orchid she said was native to western Ireland and pollinated by a specific type of male wasp.

Leah had no use for the fraternity kegs or really anything that didn't involve whatever her master plan was, Murphy thought. And he wanted more than anything to be a part of it. She was so focused and content to do her own thing.

Of course, her own thing usually involved Connor.

Leah had made some friends in her dorm and usually ate dinner with them, but she and Connor always had lunch together. No matter what their class schedules were, even if it meant eating at two before Leah's botany lab after Connor's engineering lab, she and Connor ate lunch together every day. And then they talked incessantly on the phone before bed if he hadn't gone over to her dorm. Ya comin, Connor would ask him and Murphy would sometimes go too. Sometimes he just didn't want to, just didn't want to have to watch Connor flop on her bed, tackle her, make her laugh and keep her undivided attention. Sometimes he didn't want to have to compete with his brother to make Leah notice him only to have Connor draw her back to him with the greatest of ease. It just made him too fucking tired. Tired was what he was calling it when he let himself think about it.

He had never had to compete with Connor for anything. Ever.

But he did get Leah to himself quite often. They had Chemistry lecture and lab together. And they were lab partners. The three of them studied in the library, Connor pouring over his engineering homework while Leah and Murphy often worked together on the class they shared.

Then one day after Chem lab, Leah asked him if he wanted to grab a bite to eat. Not even a mention of should they call Connor too. (Of course, Leah knew Connor was working on a group project due the next day.) Chem lab had run late that afternoon and he was late for the hospital. He almost said yes, but he told her about how he usually went to hospital at dinner time, going in to chat with the elderly patients while they had their meals. He had told Ethel Lowe, a Holocaust survivor, who was likely to die any day now from ovarian cancer that had metastasized into her lungs and other organs that he would be in that evening, and he fully intended to make good on his promise, even if the temptation to eat with Leah by himself was overwhelming—to walk with her through the gardens on the way back to the cafeteria, to get to spend just a little more time with her than usual without having to share her company with Connor.

Then Leah asked if the hospital needed anyone else to help.

"You'll be a great doctor, Murph." She said, when they walked to the cafeteria to get their own dinner, just the two of them after a visit with Ethel Lowe and a few others. She winked at him, poking him lightly in the bicep. "I feel as though I've seen a secret side of you."

He raised a brow.

"You couldn't be all practical jokes and Guinness." She chuckled, tickling his ribs then taking off in a run.

"And cheesy pick up lines." She hollered over her shoulder as he gave chase.

He had managed to get himself passed around her all girls dorm, or that was how Leah had described it, starting with Leah's roommate who had a fake ID and had gotten them two cases of Guinness. That particular night had started with Leah's six friends and the MacManus twins in Leah's dorm room, playing drinking games. Alexis was not hard to look at by any means, tall, blond and a total bitch, according to Leah and Connor. She kept putting her hand on Murphy's leg and chatting him up that night. Leah and Connor kept looking at each other and laughing about something, and now he knew what. They were all elbows and Leah, who never drank to excess, snarfed her beer at one point on Connor's shirt after he had elbowed her. This provoked more laughter out of them. Alexis told Leah she was "so fucking annoying", and Leah and Connor actually fell out of their chairs laughing at that one. Then Marie started feeling like she was going to puke, so Janey took her to the bathroom. Becky started getting sleepy, so she and her roommate Cathy went back to their room. And Alexis began to nibble at Murphy's earlobe. Soon they were kissing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Leah and Connor give each other one of their trademark looks: the open mouth recoil that always led to raucous laughter. So he was a little drunk and Alexis had moved her hand up his leg. Then he heard the door open and close. Of course, they did fall against the outside of the door and laugh for a few minutes loudly before taking off to laugh somewhere else no doubt.

Connor and Leah were sitting around eating cereal in their dorm room, when Murphy returned the next morning with a pounding headache. He was met with the two of them laughing their asses off when he walked inside. Walk of shame, Connor grinned. So where do I not want to shine a UV light in my room, Murph, Leah continued. Fuck ya both, he answered, throwing himself on his bed. They howled with laughter at that and pounced on him. Eew, did you really have sex in my room, Murph? Well, yes, he had. Murph noticed that Connor looked extremely pleased with himself.

No doubt those two had stayed up all night, lying in Connor's bed talking about every subject known to man. They had probably eaten an entire box of Pop Tarts and ordered pizza, run around and looked for the giant bullfrogs in one of the nearby ponds like they always wanted to do and rolled down the steep hill in the garden over and over like a couple of kids. The night had likely ended in a burping contest and discussion of who was a better movie hero: Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson. And then Leah had probably curled up against his brother with all the trust in the world, that little brilliant body pressed against that of his twin, who refused to discuss Leah with him.

A/N: I'm new here, so is this where I beg for reviews?


	5. Irish Oprah and The Giant Slut

A/N: Reviews would be great. As long as they're not viciously critical…

"How was your exam?" Leah asked, when Connor dragged up to their usual Wednesday lunch meeting spot, a wooded area outside the building where he had just had a grueling exam. It had gone well but it was heaven to see her, grinning at him and handing over that amazing spicy Thai peanut salad with noodles and purple cabbage they had found one day while wandering downtown and a liter bottle of Orangina.

"Over. Yer a goddess. Ya picked up lunch already, and special lunch at that." He sighed, tossing down his backpack and instead of sitting next to her on the bench, sitting against her legs on the ground. Sometimes he just wanted to lean against her. Well, all the time. "I owe ya big."

"Always." She chuckled, ruffling his hair. "You deserve it though. You've really been working hard."

"Just wanna sleep." He said, taking a big bite then leaning back against her, as he continued to wolf down his food and gulp down the drink.

"I know. But it's just a few weeks until Thanksgiving and we'll be in Charleston. You, Murph and I. We can do whatever we want. We can sleep all day if we want."

"Nope. We're gonna have a big adventure. We're gonna see where ya come from." He said and was looking forward to going to her house for the holiday. He wanted to meet her dog, George, whose pictures were plastered all over her room. He wanted to sit on the porch with her parents in the evenings like she had described. He wanted to see her room. He wanted to be anywhere she was. And he knew he always would. Everyday he loved her more, he thought to himself, smiling. His prayers were filled with thanks for her presence in his life, thanks for the first true happiness he had known, the comfort, the peace his mother had instructed him to find. In a word, for Leah.

"You're napping, aren't you?" she asked softly, her voice nearly a whisper.

"Almost." He admitted, lost in his contemplation of how wonderful life was at this moment.

"You have a class at 3:15?"

"Umm." He answered. And suddenly she moved to the ground.

"I'll wake you at 3." She said and he dropped his head into her lap happily, wondering if he should sleep or just enjoy the closeness of her, as she rummaged in her backpack for her botany text, not that she didn't already know everything that was in it, and then read as she kept track of time while he got a bit of rest. "Go to sleep."

So he did, after nuzzling her thigh gratuitously, until she put her hand on his head to likely stop his stirring. But he was happy that she didn't take it away.

Leah had a car unlike most freshmen. It was a very sturdy Volvo station wagon, able to hold a massive cargo load. This was useful, she told them, instructing them to fill their duffle bags with every last bit of dirty laundry they had, sheets, towels, everything.

Leah hated doing laundry downstairs in her dorm because of an unfortunate incident the third week of school involving someone else's residual attempt to tie-dye a shirt. Her white clothes had been stained permanently with purple splotches. Bleach had not helped. And then, the next week the dryer shrunk her clothes to the point that the shirts were "boob-huggers," she told Connor, who found himself in an awkward position of almost blurting out that the shirt she had on looked better after being shrunk but shrugged and said if she didn't feel comfortable in the shirt, by all means she shouldn't wear it or the others. But it did look excruciatingly good, he thought, knowing this was not the proper comment to add.

She was so uncomfortable about her breasts, the size of which he thought was perfect. Of course, bigger or smaller, he wouldn't have cared. And god help you, if she ever thought you were staring at them.

Connor! They were sitting in the East Campus gazebo one day having lunch and the light was falling perfectly on her and the breeze was actually blowing so that her shirt that was at least two sizes too large did not obscure anything. Hmm? You're looking at my boobs! Leah, can I ask ya something? What? Why are ya obsessed with your breasts? Because they're too big and people stare at them, she said in a quiet voice. I think they're just fine, Leah. Great, Connor, she mumbled and looked out onto the lawn where the trees were just beginning to change colors. He could not get her to look at him. Leah, tell me what's really wrong. He had a bad feeling about this, even before he saw tears starting to slip out of her eyes. I don't think I can. Well, that's disappointin'. I thought ya could tell me everythin. She nodded and then she told him. She told him about going to the Farmer's Market in Charleston when she was fourteen and getting separated from her mother and how the incident happened so quickly, so quickly that it was over before she could stop what was happening and never saw the face of the man who had touched her. She just remembered his foul breath on the back of her neck and his hands on her breasts and the things he had said to her as he fondled her. She ran and found her mother but did not tell her. She never told anyone. She never wanted anyone to know. Connor pulled her into his arms and held her as she cried. I wish they weren't there. I wish I could just disappear sometimes, that no one would look at me. He felt an old anger he had not felt for a while since coming to this numbing environment, where it was so easy to bury himself in his studies, his friends, and his favorite preoccupation of all: Leah. Bastard deserves ta die, he murmured into her hair. What did you say, Connor? He realized that he had growled. He never should've put his filthy hands on ya. You sound kind of scary, Connor. He looked in her eyes and saw curiosity in them through the tears. I guess I probably would be if someone tried ta hurt ya, Leah.

So from then on, he watched her body much more secretly. He could not help watching her. He loved the way she moved. She was graceful and so gentle with her movements. There was nothing harsh about her. And to fathom that someone had robbed her of the gradual getting comfortable with her changing body and eventually liking it. He thought about trying to tell Murphy not to ogle her but then he didn't want to have to open that can of worms with Murphy, Murphy who so obviously worshiped her. Yet the bastard took every opportunity to make an ass out of himself in front of her, screwing around with god knows how many girls in her dorm including her bitch of a roommate.

Connor was not enjoying celibacy but this was the way it was going to be, he guessed. He would rather be with Leah on Leah's terms than with anyone else. He did miss having sex regularly. Who would have dreamed he would go off to college and suddenly become celibate? University was supposed to be the goldmine. Oh well, it didn't really matter, right? Right? Of course, it didn't. He was happy for the first time in his life.

And if Leah never wanted him, well, he would think about that another time. He was going to enjoy Thanksgiving at her parents' house and try to figure out a way to make her feel more comfortable about her body. Damn that fucker for doing that to her, taking her feeling of security away from her.

And they weren't too big. They were perfect, just like the rest of her.

Murph was so hard to read these days, spending more and more time at the hospital, in the chapel and then getting plastered and fucking around. He was acting more like a fucked up Irish Catholic every day. Lots of nights Connor had the room to himself. He hated that. He guessed they weren't kids anymore. They couldn't sit by the window and watch storms roll in together at night, huddled under the blanket their aunt had made for them when they were in the crib, the blanket that Connor had packed in his trunk and now lay at the end of his bed. There was no talking to Murphy lately. There was just cleaning up after him. It was mostly answering the phone late at night when Murph was off somewhere. Connor found himself constantly taking messages from girls on the edge of tears, girls who inevitably would call back a few minutes later, that time full blown sobbing. It was so fucking awkward. For their own good, he wanted to yell at them, that they needed to keep their legs together and lose the fucking phone number. But no, he couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead, he would listen and say how sorry he was they were upset but they really needed to focus on other things like their studies and everything would be okay and one day they would find the right guy.

But he learned that shit backfired.

Soon the girls started calling to tell him their problems or showing up in random places and following him around, Murphy long since forgotten. Leah laughed about his fan club and started calling him Irish Oprah. And then they started showing up at the dorm room. Damn Murphy.

Leah commented that was what the peephole was for, after some girl who had been calling for a couple of weeks--one that Murphy had actually screwed twice--threw herself on Connor when he opened the door and plastered him with a sloppy open-mouthed kiss. Leah burst out laughing when Connor sputtered and asked the girl he had never seen before what in bloody hell she was doing. He and Leah had been talking about what he couldn't remember. Leah snickered and asked if she should leave the two of them alone, receiving a vehement middle digit, as he told the girl she would have to leave and never come back. Leah finally managed to get a laugh out of him after throwing countless potato chips at him, as he sulked, tormenting him with, Poor Connor, such a hottie, poor poor Connor, so sensitive and so sexy. Oh, look at that sexy pout. Oh, so kissable. You better watch yourself, Leah. I'll show you just how kissable. And why the hell would she not take the bait? Instead she mumbled something about being tired and needing to get back to her room, so he walked her home and was greeted by practically every girl they passed, much to Leah's amusement.

So the opportunity was there with any other female, it seemed. He was now known as The Nice Twin. But he wasn't nice, he would insist to Leah, who would smirk at him. I'm just as big of a bastard as m'brother. Of course you are, Connor. But Murphy's not a bastard, she said. He's just an opportunist and a little bit of a—well, no--a giant slut. Maybe you should try being a giant slut too, Connor. Maybe then you'd feel better. No, it would never work, he replied. They'd suck the life out of me. Death by multiple succubus attacks.


	6. Tattletale

Why shouldn't he enjoy himself? He had always been able to have any girl he wanted, growing up. Even if they noticed Connor first, he had always been able to win them with minimal effort. Of course, he never admitted to himself none of the girls back home had ever had a chance with Connor.

The most bizarre moment of his life occurred a few days before they turned fourteen and Connor suddenly noticed Emma Reilly, Uncle Sibeal's barmaid of forever. She was probably twenty-seven then. She had big tits, Murphy thought, her only redeeming quality although he shuddered at the thought of seeing them uncovered. Sometimes just the stretch marks poking out of her low cut tops were enough to cause the gag reflex. She was a total train wreck, but Connor had seen something in her, lumpy legs, acne scars, oily skin and god knows what else. Murphy remembered they were replacing a keg and suddenly the fucking thing nearly fell on his foot. He looked up and there was Connor, staring at Emma, fucking sea hag that she was. Emma was best pleased with the attention and began fucking the teenager daily. Murphy never would understand what the hell went through his brother's head. Connor was still fucking her when they left for the States. As far as Murphy knew, Connor had never been with another girl, if you could count Emma Reilly as such. He did not let his thoughts wander south regarding Emma Reilly.

And Connor would not discuss Emma with Murphy, no matter how he pestered him. He had put quite a bit of effort into goading Connor over the years as well, had come up with some creative shit, if he said so himself. The closest he got to commentary from his brother was a dislocated jaw when he said he'd rather fuck Rosie Palm than Emma Reilly, after Emma had told Murphy she would like to try **him** out.

And that was the truth. Fucking Emma Reilly.

He had a feeling Connor had dealt that blow because Murph had called Emma a whore and Connor, while it had to hurt that his girlfriend (if you could call her that) wanted to fuck his own brother, wanted to beat the shit out of Murphy primarily for insulting a woman.

Oh, boy, did they get in trouble with Ma over that one. It didn't matter that the boys were screwing around, she said, but she couldn't believe one of her beautiful sons would tussle with that nasty Emma Reilly. She told Connor his dick was probably going to fall off. Murphy had started laughing as his jaw hung slack and told his mother he had said the same thing. And you, Ma said, turning on him, did I teach you to call women such names.

But Murphy knew Connor had not given Emma Reilly a single thought since the moment that he had met Leah Winslow.

Murphy remembered being a child and always wanting whatever toy Connor was playing with. He would want the food on Connor's plate. He would want to use Connor's toothbrush, to wear Connor's clothes. If it was Connor's, he wanted it.

Murphy would take whatever he wanted. Connor never argued or retaliated as most children might have. He would just let Murphy have what he wanted and would typically watch Murphy quietly after he had taken whatever it was away from him. Maybe that was why Connor had chosen Emma Reilly. No one would have wanted her--not even Murphy just because Connor did.

But Connor was not relenting with Leah, Murphy sensed. He saw it burning behind the eyes so like his own. There was an unspoken warning not to tread into that territory. But he wanted to tread there. He knew part of it was by habit, but when he was alone with Leah when she would go with him to the hospital after Chem lab, he realized his brother had perfect taste in women. Leah was the one person he could talk to other than Connor, the one person he trusted other than Connor. And he loved her body, her petite frame with big tits. So when they were alone, he did what he always did with girls he liked. He fawned over her. He flirted incessantly, complimented her endlessly and tried to work the Murphy MacManus charm. It had never failed before and the American girls loved the accent. His stupid brother was obviously so in love with her and he never told her she looked nice or commented if she smelled good. The irony was that Connor could have any girl he wanted if he would just pay attention to them. Of course, he did pay attention to them and basically had them following him around like bird dog puppies. Connor had even gotten two of his friends in the dorm set up with two of the bird dog puppies. Now wasn't that sweet, Matchmaker Connor. Of course, they were his seconds but he never would have minded sharing with Connor after he had gotten his.

But Connor would have no part of it as always.

Connor had Leah. No matter what, Connor always seemed to have Leah. And it was driving him nuts. So he did what came naturally, not lose any time with other girls and work on Leah at the same time.

"God, Leah, they're so hot." Janey said, after Murphy and Connor left the library to go back to their dorm. Leah and Janey were headed the opposite direction to theirs.

"So you tell me at least five times a day. Who's hotter today?" Leah laughed, already knowing the answer.

"Murphy. I just wish he hadn't hooked up with Susan and Laura. He's so sweet. Maybe it's just because he gets drunk."

"Maybe." Leah chuckled, knowing full well Murphy MacManus could drink all night and never slur a word. Yes, Murph was sweet but Janey had never seen that side of him, had no idea of how poignant he could be, how kind. Janey was talking about the "cute" flirty Murphy MacManus that all the girls thought was so "hot," the Murphy MacManus that often worked her every last nerve. Why was he so afraid to just be himself? Geez.

"I wish I didn't have this giant crush on him. I know it's an exercise in futility. I'd want more."

"More what?" Leah asked, grinning.

"Not that! Well, okay, yes. I don't get why he doesn't want a girlfriend. And then there's Connor, so obvious he's unavailable. I don't know how you keep from jumping him, Leah. He's totally waiting for you to."

It always came down to this. All her friends could not understand why she and Connor were not together. Or she and Murphy. Janey said Murphy was totally in love with her. Janey was an expert in Murphy MacManus, a connoisseur perhaps, always wanting to take pictures of the three of them and snapping dozens of just Murphy when he wasn't paying attention under the guise of an interest in photography. She watched Murphy's every move and swore that Murphy stared at Leah when she wasn't looking. And he takes every opportunity to touch you, Leah. Look at this photo, it shows it. And he's always—stop it, Janey.

Murphy was always polite to Janey and never behaved like an ass with her.

There was a reason for this. Leah had told Murphy one night when they walked home after the hospital that she needed to talk to him about something serious.

"What?" he asked, turning the intense blue eyes on her and picking up her hand. "What is it, luv?"

"I need you to do me a big favor."

"Anythin' ya want."

"I want you to take it easy on my friends unless you really like them and want to have a lasting relationship with them." She said and saw surprise in his eyes, but then he recovered quickly with a smirk.

"Ye wouldn't be a bit jealous, would ya?"

She smiled and ruffled his hair. "Oh, yes. I'm just crying myself to sleep every night. No, Murph, I'm not jealous. I just know my friends and one in particular isn't made for casual interactions. And I think you know exactly about what and whom I am speaking. So please, for me?"

"Point taken." He answered, nodding. Then he narrowed his eyes. "Now I want to talk to you about something."

"Okay." She was extremely suspicious.

"My brother's no saint, ya know. He's been fuckin an older lass back home since he was barely fourteen. He—"

"Do you really think you're telling me something he hasn't already, Murphy?" she snapped. "You really ought to think about why you felt you needed to tattle on Connor."

Murphy's face turned bright red.

"He told me you were really tacky about her." Leah continued, knowing she had the upper hand now. Nasty Murphy.

"Did he tell you she wanted to fuck me too?"

"Yes, he did." Leah nodded sternly, remembering when Connor told her about Emma. Leah had been teasing him about his "following" and males reaching their sexual prime at the age of eighteen, so wasn't he missing golden opportunities.

Connor had become very quiet and frowned. She pressed him for an explanation to the end of the light-hearted conversation. It was so easy, he said, looking her squarely in the eye, and I thought that it meant something. You know, that's me, always lookin' for fuckin' meanin' in everythin'. Lookin' for somethin' in everythin' when half tha time there's nothin' there. Leah set aside her piece of pizza and looked into his suddenly pained eyes. I looked at her one day and thought underneath all that makeup and sass, there's someone else. She's just wearin' a mask like I am. What was my mask? Actin' like I could keep everythin' together at home, keep Ma relatively sober, keep Murphy and me fed if she passed out before we got home from school. If Emma was ever wearin' a mask, she never took it off.

He told her how he was positive Emma had other men from the bar and how she had even propositioned Murphy. He told Leah he had wanted to care about Emma, had really tried, but in the end, he realized it was more of his idea of who he wanted Emma to be rather than who she really was. Plain stupid of me, he groaned, looking up at her through hair that needed a trim. Are you ever going to put yourself in a situation like that again, Leah asked. Hell no. Then it probably was a good learning experience for you. He did not look so convinced but smiled at her anyway and picked up his food again, so she did too.

Leah had wanted to ask him what having sex was like but she hated making Connor uncomfortable. He was always so honest and forthcoming with her and always consistent. And they could always talk about anything. But no doubt that question would make the blue eyes widen and he would stare at her for what would seem a silent eternity before frowning and trying to give her the best answer he could, even if it was at his own emotional expense. And that was something she tried to protect against.

Everyone dumped on Connor. Murphy and their mother drained him. He was always the one that everyone would cry to, the one that had to do all the work in the group project, the one that put everyone else ahead of him.

She liked it best when they were alone, all their responsibilities fulfilled, and Connor didn't have a worry in his soul and he would talk about the places he wanted to show her when she came to visit in Ireland that summer and how the sea looked in winter and how he had never bothered to know the scientific names of all the flowers but he was sure she could take one look and tell him immediately.


	7. Winky

A/N: More farts ahead. Even though they don't belong to me, I am fairly certain that the MacManus brothers are kings of toilet humor… Thanks for the reviews, everyone. I appreciate them and would love more!

Leah's mother and father were waiting in the side garden with George, the family Airedale Terrier (Terror) who thought he weighed much less than his actual 70 pounds. Murphy figured that Leah would come from a rich family even though she did not wear all the posh clothes and drive the sports car like so many of the kids at their college. But he had guessed right, seeing the stately old Charleston Battery home with its bountiful gardens, columns and view of the Atlantic Ocean.

He watched Leah bound out of the car and begin romping with George, both of them running in and out of manicured bushes. He and Connor had met her parents when they came to help Leah get moved in during orientation and wound up hauling Murphy and Connor around too and taking them to dinner every night before returning to South Carolina. Leah's father was a faculty member at the medical school in Charleston and was particularly interested in Murphy's interest in rural geriatric medicine. And naturally, Murphy thought, if a woman has had a baby, she will latch onto Connor, as did Leah's mother, a former nurse turned volunteer extraordinaire.

Murphy sat on one of the home's many porches talking with Dr. Winslow and Leah's uncle Russ, who was going to take them out on his boat on Friday after the Clemson football game and who was very interested in genealogy. No, all Irish, Murphy insisted. Leah's uncle maintained that their roots could actually lie in Scotland. Her uncle did not understand it was offensive to be called potentially Scottish. Her mother's brother-in-law was a Campbell, and apparently very proud to be a distant descendant of John C. Calhoun and Robert MacGregor. Fuckin' Scots, Murph thought, although Leah's uncle was harmless and quite entertaining.

Meanwhile Connor was in the kitchen chopping this and that, being ever so fucking helpful as he always was, no doubt, Murphy thought.

And Leah was playing with George. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her tackle the dog and rub his belly then get up and start running with the beast again.

"You're fucking kidding me." Murphy said, when Leah showed him to his room. It had windows on three sides, like a spindle in a castle.

"It's really nice when the sun comes up. You have to walk down the hall to your bathroom though and the bed's only a single, but I thought you might like it." She said, smiling. "You may have to switch with Connor if he wants it one night, okay? But he has the best balcony room and his bathroom has the big claw foot tub where you can take a big bubble bath and watch all the sailboats on the water."

"What's your room like?"

"Pretty boring compared to this one."

"If you want, I can make it less boring for you tonight."  
"I'm three doors down, Murph. Your brother's next door. Towels are in the bathroom. Water's in that carafe next to the bed."

He could hear her talking to Connor quietly until he fell asleep about an hour later. Damn Connor. He had to know how much he liked Leah. Connor always gave in to him. Always. This was seriously fucking frustrating.

"Connor."

He woke to a gentle nudge from Leah and then George's wet nose. He lifted the covers and tried to pull her into the bed.

"No, let's go watch the sunrise on the balcony. It's about to come up." She said quietly. His eyes focused and he saw she was holding two quilts and looked adorable in her flannel pajamas.

"Gotta put on more clothes." He said, acutely aware that he was just wearing his boxer shorts.

Even though they had crapped in front of each other, many nights had slept next to each other and he would have gladly stood before her naked as the day he was born had she wanted that, he thought of this as a magnificent slow waltz that he wanted to continue forever, building and building in its own time to a climax.

And not in her parents' house.

They huddled in one of the balcony swings, George curled up with them, and watched the sun rise over the ocean. He appreciated this, watching the sunrise over the water, as he had many times as a child. He missed the water. He missed the coast. He missed home in so many ways, the sheer geography of it. Ma, of course, their Uncle Sibeal, and a few of their cousins. But mostly he missed the air, the way it smelled, the cold this time of year. He wondered if Murph missed anything.

"You're a million miles away, Connor." Leah said quietly. Connor was glad she did not wake Murphy.

"No, just a few thousand. Thinking of home, what it looks like right now. Thinking of how many times I've walked the coast at sunrise. I hadn't realized how much I missed the water until now."

"We'll come down more often." She told him. "Mama and Aunt Sue will fight over who gets to keep you. Five minutes you're here, Connor, and you replace me. I'll just move to the bottom of the pack under George."

George's head popped out from the quilts at the mention of his name.

"Not time for breakfast yet, you big wonderful glutton." Leah laughed, kissing George on the nose. George gave a disgusted sigh and submerged himself under the quilts once more.

"He's more human than most people I've met."

"Superior to people." She corrected, then ruffled his hair. "Well, maybe you could be in the same league."

The urge to kiss her was overwhelming at that moment. While others might not take being likened to George as a compliment, Connor knew this was highest praise from Leah. And the fact that she always cared about what he was thinking and had said she would bring him to her home again. So instead he just met her eyes and smiled then looked back out at the water, unable to contain his smile and not really trying to. It was the best compliment he had ever been given.

"He's missing the best part of the day." Leah groaned, as they all ate breakfast and his brother continued to sleep. Leah had made French toast. She had already finished hers.

"Let the child sleep, Miss Priss." Her mother said gently, shaking her head at Connor and patting him on the shoulder. Clarissa Winslow was an older version of her daughter, playful, gentle and kind. However, Leah had said her mother could be roused if her buttons were pushed. "Connor, dear, how do you put up with her?"

"He was telling me about that schedule of his last night. He needs his rest." Her father agreed. Connor knew Dr. Winslow had taken an instant liking to Murphy.

"I am going to fix him some French toast and I am taking it upstairs and the Princess can have his breakfast in bed and then he is getting up." Leah groaned, going to the stove, George at her heels. "And don't even start about his tough schedule."

"Leah Winslow, we have company!" her mother looked horrified.

"It's just Connor. And Connor, you might want have a word or two to add here. Connor's schedule is much more rigorous. He's taking four engineering classes and Russian and you don't hear him complaining."

"Well, Murph does like to sleep late. I usually have to get him up most mornings."

"With a shoe to the head."

"Oh, Connor dear, you don't."

"I'm afraid so, Mrs. Winslow. Cinder blocks tend ta draw blood."

Leah and her dad began to laugh.

"I imagine George can take care of it." Dr. Winslow said, grinning at his daughter conspiratorially.

Murphy did sleep like the dead. When Leah opened the door and Connor followed her inside the room, carrying a tray piled high with French toast, coffee, orange juice and George following, Murphy was sound asleep, the midmorning sunlight filling the room. Connor couldn't believe Murphy had totally missed how incredible the sunrise would look in this room.

According to Leah, George had a little known dubious talent which she often enjoyed employing on her lesser beloved family members or anyone sleeping too late, who all became sitting ducks. Sleeping with George was how Leah had discovered this talent: George was rather adept at waking a person with "a wink of the turd eye." Apparently, the large dog could stealthily position his rectum in a person's face and fart on command. Of course the dog could fart on command. The dog farted constantly with his steady diet of high fiber, doggie health food and more table scraps and treats than one would believe. He had just eaten a piece of French toast. Leah told Connor she was certain there would be a few good ones waiting in the bomb bay door.

"Winky" commanded Leah, and Connor watched George delicately hop up on the bed. Connor admired the dog's stealth for being so large but Leah had told him previously that he was soon to witness something spectacular, so he was not too surprised. And as promised, George put his ass in Murphy's face. Connor thought he was going to explode with laughter and ran to get the camera. Ma had to see these pictures. Ma would think it was fantastic that Leah had actually trained the dog to put its arse in a sleeping person's face. It took four farts for Murphy to wake up. And they were foul too, after the French toast.

Leah had told Connor on the way upstairs there was an occasional bonus to this trick: the victim was so disoriented that an eye, nose or better yet mouth made contact with the back end of George.

It was only Murphy's cheek but still gratifying, especially as Connor snapped pictures of the whole thing. Murphy jumped out of the bed and started yelling every verbal combination of fuck he could conjure, as Leah and Connor collapsed on the floor laughing and George ran around in circles, well pleased with himself.

"Shut it, Murph. Remember where ye are." Connor groaned with laughter.

"And we made you breakfast in bed, you jerk." Leah agreed, pointing to the tray on the dresser.

"Oh, and ya think I can eat after that animal practically took a shit on me face?"

"Murph, you can always eat, you nimrod. Come on, get back in bed." Leah said, getting to her feet and pulling Connor up. "I cooked it for you. Go on. Get back in bed. I made you breakfast in bed, dummy."

His brother gave him a murderous look but climbed back in the bed, muttering that he was cold. "Can't believe that."

"I worked hard to train him to do it on command. You should be impressed." Leah chuckled, bringing the tray to the bed and sitting down and motioning for Connor to follow. "Sit up and lean forward."

She had told Connor once when they were walking back from the library and found themselves in the unusual situation of having to walk a wandering duck back to the lake in the gardens so it would not get hit by a car that he should not be so hard on Murphy.

You need to love him for who he is, Connor, she said. I can't even imagine how hard it was for you guys not to have a dad growing up, to be haunted by the idea that he died violently in some needless explosion. I see you trying to protect Murphy and parent him all the time. I'm really not criticizing you. But I think you guys would be so much closer and happier if you would be his brother and enjoy being his brother. It would be so much less of a burden on you. I would love it if he were my brother. In fact, I can't think of him as anything else than my brother, not a friend but a brother.

And me, Leah, he wanted to ask, how do you feel about me. But a part of him did not want to know the answer. He didn't think he could take her saying didn't he know that she felt he was her brother without saying it.

It was a challenge getting the duck to go back in the water and convincing it that they didn't have any bread for it. Leah found an old granola bar in her backpack to give it. In the process of trying to get the bloody thing to follow the chunks of granola into the water, it wound up biting him on the thigh and Leah dropped the granola bar from laughing so hard. Bloody duck.

He loved it when she laughed, even if it was at his expense.

Connor did not make eye contact with Murphy while Leah plumped pillows behind him and cut his French toast. He looked out the windows at the ocean but could see in the reflection that she had fed him the first bite, all the while berating him for sleeping all day and missing the sunrise in this room and saying he would get George's farts as an alarm clock again if he wasn't careful. Connor did not want to see the smug look on Murphy's face as Leah put the bite of French toast in his mouth.

He didn't know if he had it in him to truly ever fight with Murphy. Didn't Murph understand anything? Why couldn't he just back away from Leah and not try to take her away just because that was what he had always done? Leah came to his side a moment later and smiled when he looked down into her face. He turned and looked at Murphy, busying himself with his breakfast, apparently having forgiven George, whom he was now feeding from his fork. Connor smiled. He loved his brother more than anything in the world when they were small. Now he loved two with that same intensity. And both of them were right there with him. He squeezed Leah's shoulder then turned and climbed onto the bed with Murphy, who lifted up the covers. Connor slid in next to him.

"Want some?" Murph asked, offering him a bite.

"No thanks, stuffed. More downstairs." Connor said, suddenly just so glad that Murph had lifted the covers. Things would never be perfect but when he turned and looked at Murph, he recognized him again.

"I'm going to go outside and do some badly needed trimming." Leah said, walking toward the door with George following. "You guys take your time. Let's go work on the roses, George."

"Guess we should have gone to college near the water." Murphy said, breaking the silence.

"You miss it too?"

"Aye, but probably mostly because ye do." He said, putting the tray aside. "Christmas'll be here soon, Conn. Ye can go to all yer old hiding places."

Connor detected a note of bitterness in Murphy's voice.

"Hiding places? What are ye talking about, Murph?"

Murph narrowed his eyes. "You're happier than I've ever known ya to be, Connor. But growing up, ya always hid yer true thoughts from me. Ya always hid everything, always had to be so strong, always trying to make sure I was okay—"

"I'm your brother, Murph. It was my responsibility to make sure ya were okay--"

"It was like ya couldn't breathe if Ma and I were around. The only time ya were really yourself was when ya would go off by yerself." Connor felt his face go hot. Damn Murphy for intruding, always having to have every piece of everything. "I followed ye so many times and ya never knew it. Just to see what ya were doin'. Just to see who ye really are."

Connor glared at him and started to move. Murphy grabbed his shoulders. "No, yer gonna listen. We're gonna talk about this. Or maybe I'm gonna talk about it. And ye can be pissed all ya want."

"Murph, let go." Connor said quietly.

"No, 'cause yer gonna run away as quick as ya can."

Connor frowned and looked Murphy square in the face. "No, Murph. That's ridiculous. I'm not going to run away. Yer being fuckin' overdramatic."

"Ye used to laugh to yerself sometimes when ya would go to the cove at the shore. Sometimes I would watch ya cry. Sometimes ya would just sit and stare at the water and I wondered what ya were thinkin' about." Murph told him, his eyes sad and pleading. "But I knew I was uninvited there. Don't ya know that you are welcome in every corner of my soul, Connor? But I don't feel welcome by you."

The words stung, stung like nothing that he had ever experienced.

"So I do my work. I pray. I go to the hospital and work with the old people. I get trashed and fuck girls I don't give a toss about."

Oh hell, Connor thought, feeling his chest tighten up. "Murph, what do ye want? What do ye want from me?"

"Talk to me sometimes, Connor. Trust me a little. Am I not worth yer trust? What have I ever done to betray ya? Sure, I'm not perfect. But I'm yer brother. Yer brother, Connor."

Leave it to Murphy to go for the kill. Connor started hyperventilating.

"Oh, jesus, Connor, I'm sorry. Easy now. Sorry. So sorry."

When he could speak again, Connor said, "Murph, I'm sorry for whatever I've done. I had to take care of ya. Do ya understand that? Ma wasn't gonna. Maybe it wasn't the right way, but from the time I was old enough to understand anythin', I understood that ya were all I had and I would do anythin' to protect ya, give ya anythin' to try to make ya happy. Nothing mattered except for ya, not even Ma really, if ya want the truth."

"And now?"

"What do you mean?"

"You love her more than you love me."

So Murphy said it. Maybe that was what he had been wanting to say all along.

"Differently, Murph."

"But you do love her."

"You know that I do."

"Well, so do I."

Connor turned his gaze from the windows out to the ocean and looked into his brother's eyes. "What are ya saying ta me, Murphy?"

"I am saying that I love her just like you do."

Connor sighed and left the bed. "Think carefully about this one, Murphy. And don't even dream of hurting her."

"So that's what ye think? I'm not worthy of her? As if ye are?"

"That has not a whit to do with it. Murphy, I will not walk away from her. If she chooses ya, I will accept it. And remember, she may not ever want either of us. But I will be there waiting should she ever want me but it will be her decision and on her terms. And ye tread lightly with her. There's too much ya don't know about her, about the way she thinks and feels. Don't ya ever dream of treating her the way ya treat those girls that expect ye'll treat them with common decency at the very least. Ye'll have me to deal with if ya do, and believe me, that's one beating ya will never forget. She's extraordinary and ya will treat her that way."

Murphy snorted. "That's all ye think I am capable of, don't ye? Ya arrogant fuck, Connor."

"Why can't ya be happy for me, Murph? Why? Why can't ya—"

"What?"

"Why can't ya let go? Why? Why can't I love someone else too? Why does my whole life have to be solely for you?"

Connor couldn't believe he had said it, blurted it really. Of course, he had meant every word of it. Murphy's compulsive possessiveness had steered the course of their lives thus far. No real friends growing up, never a real girlfriend. And Murph was right: he had to sneak away silently to have a moment for himself.

"You created this monster, Connor." Murphy said quietly, looking out at the water. "Looks like you're going to have to live with it."

"You're not having a good time, are you?" Leah said to Connor, when the rest of the family had dispersed in other rooms. She and Connor had offered to clean up the kitchen for her mother and aunt. Murphy and her dad were talking in the study.

"It's fantastic here, Leah."

She had been watching him all day after leaving him and Murphy to Murphy's breakfast. Connor was his charming self and had laughed and eaten and joined in the conversation with her family but she knew something was wrong. She had also seen tension in Murphy's face, while beneath Connor's smile, he simply looked miserable.

She raised her brow and put her hand on his forearm.

"You were right about everything, Leah." He said. "I never was a brother to Murph."

"What's going on, Connor?" she asked, slipping George a spoonful of sweet potatoes.

"All I can say is I did what I did because I thought it was for the best when we were kids. It was second nature to put his happiness before mine, because his happiness was my happiness. Our mother was harsh, not loving like yers, so I tried to be that way for Murph and I tried to be a good example, since we didn't have a dad. And he still wants me to be that person. I don't want to be his keeper anymore. I don't want him to be a child and I don't want to have to be his parent. Ya were right. Ya were right. I want a brother."

"Tell him."

"It's bloody complicated, Leah."

"He's worth it." She said, tucking her arm around Connor's waist. "You'll gain more than you lose."

He turned and looked in her eyes, his gaze so intense that she knew she should look away but she did not. "Thank you, Leah. Thank you."

"For what?"

"Existing." He murmured into her hair and she shivered.


	8. First KissPart One

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! They are like candy—except I don't really eat candy. Okay, they're like a fantastic Bordeaux or an ice cold bottle of Belhaven!

Leah loved the brothers MacManus although much differently.

Murphy had a side to him that she thought most people never imagined lay within him. He was zealous and gracious. He was gentle and soulful, spending hours in prayer and service of the sick. These lovely somewhat intangible qualities about him were probably the only qualities about him that made him dear to her. Much of the time, she wanted to smack him on the back of the head, as she had seen his brother do on many occasions. He could be the biggest whining brat, which oddly so many of her girlfriends found so attractive. And so arrogant, walking into a room as though he were the best looking male to ever grace the earth. And the stupid girls fell for that too, girls destined to be great scientists, attorneys, physicians, engineers and professors. The only time she found Murphy attractive was when he was talking to a terminally ill patient in his calm, lulling voice and holding the person's hand without a sign of revulsion. It was only then when he showed a glimpse of the man she hoped he would soon become, and instead of making her swoon, those moments filled her with relief. The majority of the time it was dreadfully hard to get close to Murphy through all the antics, tantrums, posturing and his uncanny ability to act like a ridiculous male peacock.

On the other hand, what did she not love about Connor? She could not even resent the fact that love had found her ten years ahead of schedule. Her insecurities faded when she was with him. She felt attuned to another entity in a way she never would have believed. And she yielded to it. Connor was excitement, brilliance, everything that made her laugh, everything that made her want to sigh and comfort all rolled into a physical being she sometimes could not believe existed outside of a myth. What did she not love about Connor? Now there was a point to ponder.

Murphy was standing outside the bathroom door in Connor's room when she walked out. Fortunately, not many people knew about the bathroom upstairs that separated the brothers' bedrooms in the house they had rented sophomore year with their friends James and Dustin. The party was loud. She had to go to the bathroom and she was starting to get a headache. The headache was probably from all the cigarette smoke. Connor and Murphy griped pretty much constantly about Dustin smoking and lots of his friends who smoked had come over. Connor had told her he would walk her home right after James got back from the store. He had asked if he could stay at her house that night. Dustin's friends were just complete idiots, and she knew that Connor was tired after a week of two exams and a huge project due. And then there were the girls coming out of the woodwork, including Diane the Man.

She had been a little shocked when he had been slightly grumpy with her when she teased him about "his harem" as he was trying to unstop the downstairs toilet that some girl had run out yelling to him was overflowing without bothering to cut the water off. Connor grumpy? That was a first.

Leah had spotted the cardboard tampon applicator spilling from the toilet and then the used tampon that followed and couldn't believe a girl had had the nerve to "make menstrual adjustments" in an all male household. Bloody fuckin' hell, is that what I think it is? Oh, yes, she snorted somewhere between hysterical laughter and complete revulsion. I've been trying to tell you, Connor, we're a completely vile lot. Hence, the origin of penis envy. Just give it a rest, Leah, he sighed, plunging the toilet, as she sat on the vanity and immediately stopped giggling. Sorry, he said a moment later, didn't mean to get snarky. It's okay, she started to say, when they heard a female voice in the hallway, shouting, where's Connor? Leah tried to suppress a laugh, as Connor mumbled, And just when I thought it couldn't get any fuckin' worse.

It was Diane from his fluid mechanics class that looked like a bloody bloke, he said, and always seemed to turn up everywhere. Bloody fuckin' hell, Connor hissed, fuckin' toilet overflowin' lookin' like a fuckin' homicide's been committed in it and bloody Diane the Man in my bloody fuckin' house!

Diane hated Leah and Murphy. Diane blamed Leah for making up the name Diane the Man. Truth be known, Connor had been the one to coin the moniker. She and Murphy had just laughed at it. Diane and anyone else for that matter would never believe sweet, angelic Connor MacManus capable of uttering much less thinking such petty thoughts.

I've seen a prettier jaw on a bulldog, Connor mumbled one night, after Diane had called him on the phone and asked him out. What's that, Connor, Leah chuckled, looking up from her bicycle. He was helping her change out one of her derailleurs when he had answered the phone call.

Diane had confronted her one day after her Plant Physiology class. She had seen something resembling a brick wall with long dark hair marching toward her and realized this must be the Diane of epic lore and proportion. So everyone says you're just friends with him. Excuse me, she asked, feeling very short and scrawny all of a sudden. With Connor MacManus. Everyone says you're just friends with him. Is that true? No, I'm actually screwing both the twins in a nightly ménage a trois, she wanted to say, but knew her mother would have a heart attack if she thought her daughter would speak that way, even if it was to this harpy. But what she replied, in her complete shock, realizing who this must be after Connor's vast descriptions, was probably worse.

You're--Diane the Man!?!

The look of shock on Diane the Man's face could not have been any greater than the look on her own, when she realized what she had just said. After all, that was all Connor called her and it did have a certain ring to it. Horrified, Leah turned and took off running as fast as she could back into the building and up the stairs, knowing Murphy would be in the lab where he was doing undergraduate research at that hour. Murphy had howled with laughter, so had the two grad students, the post doc and the prof himself, who agreed to let her hide out in the lab if she agreed to help Murphy extract some DNA. Of course, this was a minor task, since the prof was her advisor's husband and Leah spent a fair amount of time extracting plant DNA in his wife's lab as part of her own undergraduate research down the hall.

"Hey, Murph. You surprised me." She said, walking out of the bathroom into Connor's room and finding Murphy standing there.

"I saw you come upstairs." He said, not stepping out of her way.

"I came up to wait for Connor to walk me home." She said, slipping past him and moving toward Connor's desk. "And to hide from DTM."

DTM was the universal acronym for Diane the Man.

"I'll walk ya." He said, and without turning around, she could feel that he was directly behind her.

"That's okay—"

He put his hand on her waist and gently pulled her around to face him. "Leah."

"Murph, what is it? Are you okay?" she asked, looking into his eyes that looked different than she had ever seen them. They had a nervous, almost frantic look.

She felt him pick up one of her hands. He lifted it and began to examine it, smiling to himself. He fingered the palm before he looked back to her. And then it happened so quickly. It caught her off guard. When she would think back on it, when she would allow herself to think back on it, she had never expected it. Of course, Janey had gone on and on. Perhaps she should have known but she could never imagine anyone other than Connor.

All she could think was this was wrong. This was not what she had planned. And then she felt sick at her stomach that it had happened in the room that belonged to the one whose lips she had wanted to first touch hers. The only lips to touch hers.

In Connor's room. In his room. Where he slept. Where she often lay next to him, with no guilty secrets between them. Connor, oh, Connor, in your room. Not for the world, not for the world.

"Leah?"

She realized Murphy was speaking to her.

"Go away, Murph. Please."

Her lips belonged to Connor. They were waiting for him, for the time when or if it happened. Perhaps it never would, but Connor only, only Connor. Connor. The only one. Connor, the oxygen that filled her lungs. Connor, the voice that filled her ears. Connor, the one that encompassed her. Only Connor.

"You're crying. Leah, you're crying. Leah. Leah. What?" Murphy put his arms around her and she sensed his own hysteria.

"Please, Murph. Please, leave me alone."

"You're crying."

"Yes. Yes, I'm crying." She said, sniffing and trying to shake his arms off her. "Please let go. Please."

"I've wanted to kiss ya since I met ya, since ya put the aloe on my knee. I've been mad about ya. I didn't know how to tell ya. I saw ya come upstairs and I just made a mad dash."

"It doesn't matter. Just please get out of here before he comes up. Please, Murphy. Please. I am so ashamed."

She felt her face being lifted from the surface of Connor's desk. And she saw Murphy's eyes peering into hers. And those eyes were terrified. She did not want to feel any empathy for him in that moment, but she did. She felt it in a not so tiny corner of her heart. It was Murphy, after all.

"So it is truly him you want?"

"He's everything I want." She said with as much conviction as she had ever said anything despite tears.

"Ye feel nothing for me?"

She was furious with him, whiny baby that he was and yet her _mentch_, her favorite above all others in so many ways.

"Murphy, I could not love you any more as a brother. And I know somewhere in you that you know that without me telling you. You have all the answers in and around you but you run from them, absolutely refuse to see them. And damn you for taking this from me."

"Taking what? Taking what, Leah? What did I take?" He looked truly scared.

"My first kiss, Murphy." she screamed under her breath. "I wanted it to mean something. I wanted it to be Connor. Only Connor. He is the only one I want to ever touch me. Can you even begin to understand what that feels like? To have found the person that you trust implicitly? I may be just be twenty years old with my whole life ahead of me, full of ignorance about virtually everything, but I do know one thing. Connor is the fulfillment of every need and wish I have. I just hope I can be that for him."

Reaching instantly for the rosary he always wore underneath his shirt, Murphy stared at the floor. "Leah, I am so sorry for what I did. I shouldn't have. I'm sorry. Jesus, I hope ya don't hate me."

She swallowed and felt sad. She hated this conversation but the reality was that it was occurring and like Winston Churchill said, she thought, "If you're going through hell, keep going."

"Murphy, I could never hate you. If you open your eyes a little, you might realize how much you mean to me—as a friend and a brother."

He buried his face in his hands for a moment then looked back up at her with eyes full of shame but obviously wanted to trust. "Thank you. And I'm sorry. Wish I'd never touched ya now as much as I'd been wantin' ta. I should have known. Christ, I guess I did know. Leah, I—listen, it may not mean a thing to ya, but I do love ya. But, now ya listen to me. Ye'll have him. He loves ya, more than his own life. Ye'll have yer Connor. But just remember he's as scared as ye are. Scared to screw up, scared ye'll reject him, scared he's not perfect enough for ya. Oh, ye'll have yer Connor. And he's a better man than I could ever be." Murphy met her eyes when he spoke. "And for what it's worth, I'd never hurt ya for the world."

"I know, Murph." She said weakly.

"I really fucked up, didn't I?"

"It'll be okay, Murph. Just don't do it again. Give me a hug then go downstairs."

"Connor?"

"Aye?" he said as they walked back to the apartment she shared with Janey a block away. He wished he and Murph had rented the house with her and Janey instead of Dustin and James.

"Can I tell you something?"

"You can tell me anything. Ya know that."

"I don't want to talk about it, but--"

"But people who pick up used tampons off floors together stay together." Connor finished her sentence lightly but had a bad feeling about this. He thought he might get a laugh out of her by mentioning the incident.

They had divided the task. Covering their hands with plastic bags on the count of three, they accomplished the ungodly job, he grabbing the applicator and she the tampon itself and hurling the foul objects into a garbage bag in the bathtub, which then had to be taken to the dumpster, so Connor could dump the mop bucket of ammonia into the tub while balancing on the side of the tub. Who gives a fuck if all these fuckers keel over from the fumes, he grumbled. There was no fucking way he was stepping on that fucking floor until it was clean again. Bathroom is out of order, he hollered, when someone knocked, shaking the mop at the door menacingly, making Leah laugh. I have to pee. Sounds like a fuckin' personal problem, he yelled back, making Leah laugh so hard she nearly fell off the sink. I'll fuckin' kill Murph if he unlocks our rooms and lets them go in our bathroom, he told her, as the somewhat diluted red-tinted liquid went down the tub drain. Fuckin' Dustin deserves that fuckin' tampon on his fuckin' pillow. Connor, I believe you might be a bit of a misogynist. Gettin' there, he chuckled, real fuckin' fast. Dustin can clean the fuckin' tub himself.

"Connor, I have to tell you this but I really hope you won't get angry."

"Did someone hurt you?" he felt his blood rising.

"No, Connor. No one hurt me." She said quickly. "It's okay."

"Bloody well better not have."

"Connor, what does Murph say about me?"

"What?!? What the fuck did he do?"

"Calm down. I just want to talk to you about something."

"Leah, ye told me not ta get angry and then ya—okay, sorry, luv. Talk ta me. 'M sorry, 'kay."

"Okay. Well, when I went upstairs and came out of the bathroom, Murph was there and out of the blue, he just—well, he kissed me. And I don't feel that way about him. But I never would have seen it coming. Connor, would you tell me something?"

"What?" He asked, wondering where this was going and what he was going to have to answer and how he was going to not make as big an ass of himself as Murphy had. He could hear the hurt in her voice.

"Do I behave in a way around Murphy that would make him think that I—I want that kind of attention from him?"

He wanted to kill his brother at that moment, hearing her so unsure of herself. He wanted to kill that scumbag that had touched her when she was fourteen. Godammit, Murph, did you just have to invade her personal space with a fucking unsolicited kiss, probably the worst thing to do to her? Godammit! Maybe he should have told Murph about what had happened to Leah, but that was for Leah to tell, but he felt responsible anyway and chilled with sadness, when he looked into her eyes searching his desperately for an answer.

"Never, Leah. You're always respectable—except after black beans, and those farts aren't just respectable, they're downright admirable. There should be some kind of trophy for those."

He saw the situation was too far gone for a laugh. Godammit, Murph. And the truth is I want to kiss her too, Connor thought. But not quickly, not at a fucking college party, not until she's ready, not until she's ready.

"Leah, I can honestly say I've never met a more respectable or decent human being than you." He told her. "And what I'm getting ready to say is not intended to embarrass ya or make ya feel uncomfortable. But yer beautiful. And god help him, my brother tends to turn into an ass with the opposite sex if they're even just slightly more attractive than Diane the Man, much less…beautiful like ye are."

Silence fell between then for a moment, as they stared at each other. He couldn't believe he had said it but was glad he had. It was the truth. She suddenly broke the silence frowning, then swallowed hard before she spoke.

"It happened in your room, Connor. In your room. I feel as though I've violated your sanctuary." She said, starting to cry. "Connor, I would never betray your trust. Never. Please don't be angry with me."

"Dear god, I could never be angry with ya. I know ya would never betray me trust, Leah. Jesus, was that what ya were afraid of? You've nothing to worry about. Please don't cry. It's alright, Leah." Connor said quickly, so blinded with rage for his brother that he was having difficulty responding to her. "It's alright. Everything is alright. Can I hug ya, Leah?"

"Please."

He pulled her to him on the sidewalk and thought of the walk they had taken the past summer in the early morning along the Irish Sea during her visit. She had turned to him after a long look at the water, a deep breath and thoughtful intake of their surroundings and said, I think this could be my sanctuary too.

"But it's your room. It's yours."

"That room is just a place where I sleep and where my things are, Leah. It's nothing. Now, listen ta Connor, take a deep breath. It's not worth crying over."

"It's just—that's just not what I wanted to happen."

He let out a deep breath of his own. "Leah, what should I do? What do you want me to do? How can I fix this? How can I make this okay?"

"Just don't hold it against me."

He took her chin in his fingers gently and looked in her eyes. "Never."

"Promise?"

"I promise." He said, his eyes never veering from hers. "Of course, I may kill me brother for being so careless and disrespectful of ya."

"No, no, Connor. Murphy's your brother. He loves you more than anything in the world."

"Ha!"

"Connor. Please, Connor, don't let this become a problem between the two of you. He's just trying to find his way. And we all stumble."

Connor nodded his assent to her wishes. It would be difficult to honor that promise, but god help him, he would do it.

"Thanks, Connor." She said, when they reached her door. She had turned and smiled at him. Then she jumped up and gave him an unexpected, sudden embrace that he returned. He spun her around and she laughed. Into his ear, she said, "Thanks for saying I'm attractive."

"Beautiful." He corrected her and he knew he was blushing but he didn't care at that moment, because he meant it and she needed to hear it. She needed to hear it from someone who cared and who respected her and loved her and would never hurt her. Maybe progress was being made too, that she was feeling better about herself. "I said ya were beautiful, Leah. There's a big difference. Keep that in mind."

"Well, thank you." He saw that her cheeks were bright red as she opened the door.

Leah's apartment was quiet. Janey was out with friends. The place was clean, and he was ready for a shower after the horror movie bathroom. When he returned to the small living room in clean clothes he had brought in his backpack, he smelled immediately what Leah was up to. There was nothing that went better with beer than German fried potatoes. He knew there was Belhaven in her fridge because he had put it there. It was a joke between them, that no Irish beer would inhabit her refrigerator. And damn the Scots for that bloody fantastic ale. And damn Murphy. When Leah wanted to eat greasy food, it meant stress. He hoped he had not added to it. But she had looked into his face earnestly and had been smiling. And she was beautiful.

He was never going to live with all guys again. There was never any food in the pantry. At Leah and Janey's, there was always milk in the fridge and it was not sour. They always had fruit, cereal of different sorts, spices, ingredients to make meals, and things like bacon well within the expiration date. They had grits and cheese, which Leah would always make for him. The furniture didn't have rips or broken legs in it from assing around or cigarette burns from Dustin's new filthy habit. The glasses in the cabinets matched. There were clean glasses in the cabinets, not just plastic cups from various Stop n' Rob markets. And the place didn't stink like gym socks and what Leah called "Boy Smell."

He had always been neurotically neat, unable to complete his assignments or study unless his books and papers were at exact ninety degree angles to one another on his desk. He hated blue ink, would only use black, and when he used a pencil, he had to use the same kind of pink pearl eraser he had used since he was in elementary school. He had an X-acto knife which he used to keep the edges of the eraser congruent to one another. Paper was another matter altogether. He would only use quadrille paper and printed his notes in all capital letters.

Murphy had none of these proclivities and found it absolutely hilarious to move the items on Connor's desk. He had even caught Leah in the act of carving a hunk out of one side of his eraser with a delighted, mischievous grin on her face.

He guessed he was a hopeless "enginerd" like many of his classmates.

"Want to go to the beach tomorrow, Connor?" she asked him, as they ate potatoes and he drank a bottle of Belhaven, which he never would have drunk in the presence of another Irishman but this was a safe haven, where he could enjoy his vice.

"That would be fantastic. You're not just fantasizing, are ya?"

"I wouldn't do that to you about the beach, silly. No, we'll set the alarm for six, go water the greenhouse and we can be at Emerald Isle by nine."

He chuckled. A North Carolina beach called Emerald Isle. It was quite nice there. Lots of interesting marine life, clean sand, a healthy coastal ecology. February would be cold and they would have the beach to themselves, just like he liked it.

And tomorrow was Valentine's Day anyway and being around campus was so fucking depressing with all the happy couples, going two by two. The beach with Leah was a dream come true.

"Do you have a lot of homework this weekend?" she asked.

"For once, no."

"Up for camping then?"

"Aye, you know it. This really is a dream, isn't it?"

"We'll take the dutch oven for grits Sunday morning."

"Must be dead and gone ta heaven."

"I didn't say anything about cheese. Likely purgatory."


	9. Better than Michelangelo

He told Leah he would be right out with his gear, when they drove up to his house. He noticed that she did not seem any too eager to go into the house.

"Whatcha doin?" Murph asked, having slipped silently into Connor's room, as he stuffed some extra clothes into his camping bag, which like Leah's was always ready to go. Of course, hers had all the sunscreen in it. Every bag of Leah's had sunscreen in it. She was always after him to put on sunscreen. He would roll his eyes and say he didn't need it.

This, of course, was a ploy, and one that actually consistently worked. She would tackle him, straddle him and rub sunscreen on him. Naturally, he had to pretend to put up a bit of a fight then act a bit miffed that he had been slathered. Then there was a second most pleasurable go round when she would wipe the dreaded "sunscreen boogers" off his face and neck.

To be tackled, straddled and rubbed by Leah? There was no way in hell he was putting on his own sunscreen. Besides he really didn't think he needed it.

"Leah and I are going ta the beach." He answered without turning around.

"She told ye."

At that, Connor turned around to face his brother. "I made her a promise that I wouldn't let what ye did be a problem between us. But Murph, I am going to say this to ya. Do ya know what you did? You made her feel as though **she** had done something wrong. Ya made her doubt herself. Ya made her feel uncomfortable about herself as a woman. Believe me, I know ye care about her. But this isn't just about Leah here. Ye've got to start listening ta people and being more sensitive ta them. Yer so fuckin' smart, Murph, but Christ, yer so fuckin' blind at times. For fuck's sake, Murph, some fucker fondled Leah when she was fourteen in the market. She doesn't know how to feel about her body, guys, anything. And then ya go and kiss her without her asking ya to. God, I hope ye didn't cop a feel. God, I hope ya wouldn't be that slimy. Jesus, Murph, she sees ya screwing around with every girl that passes by on this campus. What does that say ta her? That she's just one of them to ya, some object? 'Cos that what that bastard I would fucking kill if I could made her feel like. So what about all those girls, Murph? They have stories too. They're just like you and me. Just like Leah. Life is fragile, so fucking fragile and precious. Do ya want to do harm? Do ya? I know ya don't. I know ya better."

"What did ye say? Someone hurt Leah?" Murph's eyes had become narrow slits. Connor could see he was filled with fury. Let him learn his lesson, if he could. Let it burn a hole in him.

"Yes, Murph. Someone hurt Leah. And don't ya see, all those girls ye dally with could be Leah in one way or another? They're definitely someone's daughter or someone's sister. Why don't ye think of that before ye cast them aside without another thought of them! And don't ya ever tell Leah I told ya or I'll fuckin cut yer tongue out. What the fuck am I doin? Leah's waiting for me. See ya, Murph."

He left his brother, standing in the doorway of his bedroom. He didn't know if Murphy would take any of what he had said to heart. He was just running as fast he could to Leah, who was waiting for him. And they were going camping on the beach.

"Connor, if you get in the water, you're not getting in the tent wet!" she warned when he started tearing off his clothes after dinner. "It's too cold."

"Oh, yer coming too. Yer joinin' the Polar Bear Club this time!" He laughed, pulling on her sweater.

"You and your stupid polar bear club." She groaned, then laughed at him. "Underwear stays on, Connor."

"Fair enough. Underwear stays on."

"No looking."

"It's bloody dark outside. I can't see me hand in front of me face much less yer silly arse." He chuckled, poking her in the ribs.

"Towels out by the tent. No water in the tent, Connor. I mean it." She said, pulling out her towel, recalling how he had come in to the tent last winter and shaken water all over her, waking her up, laughing the whole time. Then soaking wet, he slid into their sleeping bags they had zipped together and first made her cold then turned their sleeping bags into a steaming, soggy mess. He had since been schooled in proper sleeping bag etiquette and maintenance. However, he could always use a refresher, she thought. "Get your towel out."

"I'm getting it, der fuehrer." He was digging through his pack as she watched him in the lantern light. Long torso, flat belly—and that was when she saw it. His jeans were a little loose and sagging a bit on the hip, and she saw something so gorgeous she could not believe there was yet another part of him to trump the others, maybe even those eyes. It was the place where his stomach and hip met, the indention—a magnificent mystery she suddenly feared above all, yet she found herself wanting to trace the area with her finger, lips too. Dammit, Connor!

Idiot, she thought, you had to know the view without pants wasn't going to be ugly when the rest of him is exquisite. But he's more exquisite than Michelangelo's statue of David. Better hips than David? Dammit, Connor!

"If you forgot your towel, you can use mine and I will gladly stay here." She said quietly, looking away, fiddling with the zipper on the sleeping bags. Dammit, how am I ever going to sleep again next to those hips? Better hips than a creation of Michelangelo!

"Ha! Here it is. No way yer getting out of this." He grinned triumphantly, shaking the towel at her, then yanking at his jeans before she could turn off the lantern.

"Can we go back now?" she asked, starting to shiver in the water after they had splashed around in the winter ocean water and were thoroughly soaked. "Am I initiated?"

"Cold?"

"Yes, moron!"

He grabbed her before she could run away and carried her back to the tent. She was squealing and wiggling the whole way.

"Still cold?" he asked, his breath on the back of her neck, when they were bedded down in their joined sleeping bags. Connor of the Perfect Hips was sleeping only in his boxer shorts. The Perfect Hips were covered by very little material and exposed totally by her imagination. No, dammit, I am not cold at all, especially with your arms around me. Terrified, yes, but definitely not cold.

"Nope. I think we made it back just in time before the frostbite would have taken our extremities." She hoped she sounded glib.

"Are you glad we came to the shore?"

"Yes." She answered honestly.

"Me too." He said, hugging her closer to him.

"Go to sleep, you crazy polar bear."

"Murph, wait up." She hollered, as she watched Murphy practically stomp toward the hospital. He had not come by the lab as he usually did on Thursday so they could head to the hospital just as they had done every Thursday for over a year. In fact, this had not surprised her. He had not shown up at the library to study with her and Connor all week. She had not seen him on the Bryan Center walkway on her way to her Plant Physiology lab as she did every week. "Murph, wait!"

He stopped in his tracks, his shoulders slumped, but did not turn around. She caught up with him and approached with apprehension.

"Did you want to go by yourself, Murph?" she asked his back.

"Not really."

"Then why didn't you come by to get me?"

"I feel like a shit."

"You don't look like one. Or smell like one." she said lightly, putting her hand in the center of his back, on the rough wool of his black coat, a match to the one his brother wore.

"How can ya just joke around like that? How can ya forgive me when I can't forgive meself?" he demanded, spinning around to face her in the setting sunlight. He looked miserable, dark circles under his eyes, as though he hadn't slept for a week.

"It was the easiest thing in the world because I care about you. Looks like you need to learn to care about yourself, dummy. That's how." she answered, picking up his hand. "Executive decision, Murph. We're skipping the hospital tonight. You need some ABBA therapy. Maybe you do look like a shit."

It didn't take long after Indian take-out and dancing around like idiots to ABBA, Barry Manilow, and The Village People to bring back something resembling Murph, and a version she thought she was going to prefer. The boundaries were clear now. It was clear he had every intention of respecting them. When Connor arrived at the apartment, she could not entice him to join in to an interpretive dance of "Fernando" but he did give them a grin that told her he too was glad there was order back in the world.

A/N:

Translation:Sunscreen Boogers: clumps of sunscreen that don't get rubbed all the way into the skin, especially when someone is wiggling and knows the object of his affection is so fastidious that she will rub them in rather than look at them.

You may have noticed I am a major SPF fangirl. But the man has ruined his skin in the sun! Recent close up shots of his face make me want to cry. SPF, use your sunscreen!


	10. Using those Languages

It was the longest the twins had ever been apart in their lives.

The spring of their third year in college, they like so many other students chose to study abroad. Murphy was chosen to go on a prestigious rural public health program in Costa Rica, while Connor was accepted as the only student in the university to participate in an intercollegiate program near Manaus, Brazil studying environmental engineering and ecosystem ecology along the Amazon River. Murphy's Spanish was flawless as was Connor's Portuguese. The brothers took advantage of other language courses offered at the university, having long since exhausted their courses in secondary school of Spanish, French, German, Ancient Greek and Latin. Since there were few people interested in practicing their skills with them, they always took the courses together. Chinese and Russian were their new languages. Connor said the US was outspending the Russians in the arms race and the Soviet Union would fall apart in a matter of a few years. And he for one wanted to travel there, not only just to see its natural beauty, but he also believed much of the drilling and pollution in the Barents Sea was affecting the Irish coast and he truly believed that in his lifetime there would be opportunities for remediation efforts. He was always happy to extrapolate on this subject to anyone who would listen. Never to be outdone, Murphy was going to learn Russian too and up the ante by taking Chinese, which Connor naturally squeezed into his schedule.

Connor had learned Portuguese on tape. He said it was a watered down version of Latin, like just about everything else. Murphy was happy to practice Spanish with Leah. She would be on a program in Chile studying what else but plants.

Murphy was going to fly down to see Connor over their Spring Break. Ma had told them that the money was there for them to get an education and how often would her boys get to explore the Amazon Rain Forest. They had scholarships for tuition and living expenses for college but Ma always was coming up with money for other things, the source of which both boys had learned not to question at an early age. Rough and tumble Ma, so full of secrets, and so insistent that they get the very best education and be the very best students. Make me proud, boys.

The postal service between Chile and Brazil was slower than Connor would have liked but he got a letter from her every three days on average. Of course, they had been mailed a week and half before but he was just glad to see her familiar handwriting on the air mail envelopes and to read the long letters filled with descriptions and sketches of a landscape he could not wait to see once the semester ended and he made the journey to Santiago, from which they would travel Chile and then finally to Machu Pichu. They would have a month to travel.

He loved what he was doing in the Amazon. The exposure to means of pollutant remediation projects, the abject horrors of slash and burn agriculture and its long term damage to the ecosystem and clear examples of habitat fragmentation and its disastrous consequences on the long term health of the environment was an invaluable educational experience and inspiration for what he knew he would make his life's work. He was finally able to show Murphy what he was talking about but could never make him understand as they walked along the coast at home and Connor would point out how things kept changing since they were kids and sea life was dying because of the industrial activity in England and its pollution.

Murph seemed amazed by the enormity of the Amazon, the juxtaposition of its untouched areas and the places that had been ravaged by the corporations, the bastards. Murph seemed more committed than ever to his goal of healthcare for those in need. He talked of the poverty he had seen. The doctor in charge of his program had asked him to go with her to India for six weeks following the semester. He had committed to the trip. He was trying to learn Hindi at night from a Spanish to Hindi text. Murph seemed happy, peaceful. His dark hair was getting long. Ma would have a fit. Connor was certain girls would have a fit of a different sort.

"Leah's sent me a couple letters." Murph told him cheerfully, as they drank mate' at a small café near Connor's dorm.

"Aye." Connor answered.

"Miss her?"

"What do ya think, ya daft bastard?" he asked his brother good-naturedly.

"Just a couple more months, Connor. Then you'll be with her."

"Counting the days. I'm not saying that I don't love it here. But I'd give it up in a heartbeat to be with her. And when I wake up in the morning and then you're not here—"

"Fuckin weird, isn't it?" Murph nodded. "Threw a shoe at Lance, my roommate, one morning. I was half asleep and forgot it wasn't ye snoring. No resemblance to ya at all, all red hair and blubber."

"A ginger, eh?"

"Aye, smells of pee."

Connor grinned at his brother and they shared at hearty laugh at the age old joke about gingers that no one in the US knew. No matter how pissed they were at each other once they arrived in America, one of them would spot a redhead and gesture the other's attention to the unknowing person and the other would surreptitiously pinch his nose. Then they would be practically falling over each other laughing.

"Glad you're here, Murph. Ma's gonna kill ya if ya go home with your hair that long."


	11. First Kiss Part Two

She had moved all her things to the hotel that morning. Her baggage would be in storage at the University dorms to be picked up before the flight back to Charleston. She just had her backpack for their trip. It was still four hours before his flight arrived and she was already starting to fuss with her clothes and her hair. And her makeup. But when she got her hair cut the day before in the posh salon she had passed so many times when she was in Santiago instead of out in the field, she got excited when she saw her hair and told the stylist she needed some cosmetics too. She hadn't had a haircut since she arrived and her hair had grown into a shaggy mess that she kept in a ponytail. The stylist produced a textured look that fell along her jaw line. She was pleased. Just a bit of brownish-plum lip color and the same on the eyes. The makeup artist told her that her cheeks were rosy enough, making her blush even more.

Maybe she should wash it all off, she wondered, looking at herself in the mirror. She slipped on a new sweater. It was a thin plum-colored cashmere, since the weather was still cool. She admired the Chilean women, had seen the confidence with which they carried themselves and learned from them. They didn't hide their bodies in fear of crass comments from perverted men. She watched how they held their heads high and moved about in the city as they pleased. Over the semester, she found herself emulating them, and a new sense of freedom filled her. If men were leering, she did not see them. She focused on the things she wanted to see. She went the places she wanted to go. No one molested her.

She was tired of being limited by fear, under the control of some sick man's comments and actions. She found herself thinking about that often over the semester and actively telling herself she had done nothing to provoke that onslaught. The truth was that that sicko would have found some other victim to fondle that day if he had not found her. It was not your fault, she told herself over and over almost like a mantra. And there's nothing wrong with you.

And Connor had said she was beautiful.

When she was not out surveying Chilean geophytes in the field, she and her new friends went to the Santiago discos sometimes and she found herself having fun, her self-consciousness slipping out of her being, out on the dance floor with her new buddies as they moved their bodies to the loud, thumping music, laughing and grinning in their little herd, interacting sometimes with the locals who were friendly and out to have fun too. It was a good time. She was certain Connor would have laughed if he had seen her dance. She was sure she looked silly but it was fun, and to walk back to the University at the end of the evening sweating under her coat with her friends, singing new songs from Chile, the US or the European Top 40 at the top of their lungs was quite liberating.

He started to fidget the moment he got on the plane for the long ride to Santiago from Rio. The plane from Manaus to Rio was a poorly maintained prop plane and he was thankful to be on the big jetliner. But he couldn't blame his nerves solely on the crappy plane. His possessions were on a plane back to Dublin except for his backpack he would use for the trip with Leah. Hopefully their uncle would get Ma to sober up long enough to go retrieve them or else send his cousin Aidan to get them. But it really didn't matter. All that was in those bags were clothes and some books and some souvenirs. All he really cared about was getting to Santiago. It had been six months since he had seen her, except for pictures that were now dog-eared, especially his favorite one of her, the one from home that he had taken of her at the shore, a big grin on her face, brighter than the morning sun. How many times had he taken it out to look at it during the day, the night, on the boat, on a walk? He didn't want to read the paperback he had bought at the airport bookstore. He reached inside his leather satchel for his most precious possession: a bundle of letters, a stack that had grown rather substantial. They would take hours to read. Hopefully the entire plane ride. There were sketches in them and pressed flowers and leaves too, little pieces of her journeys that she shared with him. He loved the neat slant of her small handwriting, clear and easy to read. By the end of this ride, by the end of these letters, you will be with her.

He thought he was dreaming when he saw her standing in the terminal waiting, once he had passed through Customs. It was Leah, alright. But what he saw he couldn't believe. Her posture spoke volumes to him, the squareness of her shoulders, the extension of her neck, the erectness of her spine. The serene smile on her face, as she scanned the masses walking past her. She hadn't spotted him yet in the crowd, so he observed her. Clothes that fit—no, they complemented her body, accentuated it. He was dumbstruck and overjoyed at the same time. She looks brave, healthy, happy, he thought. Then she spotted him, and the grin he had missed so badly appeared and she began running toward him, and he thought he would pass out from the excitement.

He dropped his backpack in the middle of hordes of people, passing them. She was making a beeline to jump into his arms and he knew it. She had missed him too and he could feel it, watching her approach, yelling his name happily. He had never seen anything so beautiful.

And jump into his arms she did.

"I can't believe you're here!" She laughed, hugging him tightly, then leaning back to look at him then leaning in to hug him again.

"Me neither!" he laughed too.

They stared at each other in wonder for a moment and then she leaned in and kissed him. Softly, so softly, her lips lingering on his. He would never forget how it felt, ever. He would never forget how surprised he was, how thrilled, how proud, how amazed. Of course, it did spark a hunger for more, more, more.

"Connor, open your eyes." She said and he wasn't sure when she said it.

"Not yet. I don't want ta wake up."

"You're not asleep, polar bear." She said, tugging a strand of his hair.

"Then kiss me again."

"If this is a barter system, no kiss until you look at me. I've been waiting to look into your eyes for six months."

He opened his eyes truly in shock and looked into hers. It was the most wonderful thing anyone had ever said to him. And she had said it. She smiled happily. "Ahh, gratification."

"Ah, Leah, do ya even know how much I love ya? How I've always loved ya?"

"No, but if you'll put me down and let us go, I'll let you show me."

"Leah, is this really happening?"

"Yes, Connor. Yes, this is really happening." She smiled and kissed him. He was fairly certain that he would have a stupid grin on his face for the rest of his life.

He and Leah sat next to one another on the edge of the bed and held hands for a while, stealing glances at each other. He was scared to make the first move. Fortunately, she did, asking him to kiss her.

After a thorough exploration of each other's lips and mouths, hands roaming over clothed bodies and the temperature in the room rising significantly, it occurred to him that unlike his brother, he did not carry an arsenal of condoms. He had lifted the hem of her sweater to kiss the soft, creamy skin of her stomach and she was removing his t-shirt when this thought hit him.

"Leah?"

"Umm?" she murmured, pulling his face to hers and moving her hands down his back. His entire body was tingling and felt like it might combust.

"What are we doing?"

She smirked and spoke in a mock clinical voice, lips pursed. He could tell she was trying not to laugh. "I believe that the technical term is foreplay, Connor."

Of course, she wound up laughing and he loved the sound of it and the feel of it, since she was underneath him.

"Leah, I'm sorry I'm all idiot. But what do ya want? I mean, how far do ya want this to go? What we're doin, I mean."

She stopped laughing and kissed his nose then pressed her forehead to his. "I am yours if you want me."

He gasped, unable to believe what she had said, unable to believe any of this. "I've never wanted anyone the way I want you, Leah. I love ya. I love ya. I can't believe I can just say it to ya! But there's just one problem."

"What?"

"I don't have any—um, well, condoms."

"Odd, I didn't think you Catho-holics were allowed to use them." She teased.

"Well, technically no."

"Fodder for confession, hmm. Guess you'll also have to confess that your lover takes The Pill. It was always to regulate my period but I guess this is a bonus." She laughed, twirling his hair around her finger.

"My lover, eh?" He sighed, then smirked. "Sounds very sophisticated."

"We'll have to work on being sophisticated. My guess is we're just a couple of dorks about to have sex."

Connor agreed, feeling very much like a dork, albeit a happy one. Then his emotions rollercoastered into yet another category. Terror.

"Speculum?"

"Torture device used during PAP smear. Feared by virgins worldwide. You can't hurt me, believe me."

"They use a torture device during a PAP smear?"

"Figuratively, Connor. Don't be nervous, I'm serious."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"The speculum already did the job. You just be glad you're a guy. Of course, when you hit fifty, you'll get the colonoscopy fun. But at least they sedate you for that."

"What the fuck?"

"Enemas too. Just you wait."

"Connor, your hands and mouth have been all over me. Now it's my turn. I haven't been able to keep a clear thought in my head for the past god knows how many hours. I want to touch you. And I 've got a laundry list of places on you I want to kiss starting with the spot where your belly meets your hips!"

"How long? How long have you been thinking about me too?" he asked, fascinated and flattered and not caring that he was grinning like an idiot.

"From the beginning. And believe me, I didn't want to. You made it pretty much impossible not to. You know I hadn't planned to have a boyfriend until after I got my PhD. You really messed up my plans, buddy." She whispered in his ear, as she kissed the tendon that ran down his neck. She was about to locate the erogenous zones of his body, all of which he had been previously unaware. This was one of them. He let out a throaty moan.

"I wish this were my first time." He murmured quietly a moment later. "I can't believe I can feel like this. I hope yer not disappointed. I'm so sorry, Leah."

She had found the hollow of his ribcage and then his hipbone. "Does this feel disappointed, Connor?"

"I get ta hold your hand when we walk somewhere." He announced out of the blue, as they walked to her favorite café in Santiago. He picked up her hand. "If that's okay with ya."

"It's very okay." She answered, glancing into the eyes she had missed so much. Those eyes now were filled with amazement. And he had the goofiest, silliest, content grin on his gorgeous face.

He started laughing and caught her around the waist and pulled her to him for a kiss. "Is that okay too?"

"Very."

"And ya really love me?"

"I really do."

"Will ya say it?"

"I love you, Connor."

"Again, please."

"You're completely silly. And wonderful. And I love you. And no, don't ask me to say it again. I promise the novelty will wear off. Hopefully soon." She pulled him into the café.

"It's not a novelty thing. I'll never stop wanting to hear ya say it, Leah."

When she turned and looked at him, she rolled her eyes. "Connor, we're going to see the city. We're not spending the day in the hotel room. Quit the I-love-you business or I'll have to ravage you. We're going to eat and then I'm taking you sightseeing."

"You'll have to ravage me, aye?" he chuckled, poking her in the ribs, as they seated themselves at a table. "No, we'll see the city, then I'll misbehave and ya can ravage me tonight."

"Deal."

They shook hands on it across the table.

A/N: Ah, I feel better now.


	12. MetaMURPHosis

Ma won the argument over cutting his hair. Murph really didn't care about his hair anyway. At that point, he would have submitted to just about anything to keep the peace in the house, where tranquility was always a scarce commodity, something he had never craved so much until now.

Sarah had told him that she had asked him to go on the expedition to India, because he had been the only student in whom she had full confidence that he would never turn from any patient no matter how horrific the circumstance. You're a born doctor, Murphy. You didn't come along just to put this on your medical school application.

But he was haunted by what he had seen, the deplorable conditions in which so many people lived, people whose lives he had intersected. He saw so many faces and so many disease-ridden bodies when he shut his eyes, their malformed limbs. After visiting Home for the Dying in Calcutta and seeing the nuns ministering to persons of all faiths without a thought to themselves, he knew he had witnessed something astounding, something so selfless and necessary. They had allowed him to help for a few hours and he had felt the holiness there that others had described in the numerous accounts he had read. He felt a sense of shame as well for the people he had mistreated. Connor had been right. Everyone has a story.

After seeing what he had seen in Costa Rica then India, he knew how important it was to keep trudging ahead, even when it felt as though he could never do enough. It was more important than he had ever dreamed.

He saw instantly when Connor picked him up at the airport how the trip in South America had gone. Connor was blissfully happy, although a bit melancholy and counting the days until he returned to the States to be with Leah. And Murph was so glad when Connor pulled him into an embrace and knew how India was without even having to ask. Murph had always been one to pull out of Connor's frequent embraces of him, had always taken them for granted really. He hoped his brother felt him hug back this time. There was no more treating Connor like shit, or anyone else for that matter, but never Connor again.

"How's Ma?" he asked Connor, who had an arm slung over his shoulder.

They were waiting for his luggage, and Connor was still wearing the insanely colorful kullu cap Murph had slipped on his head. Murph couldn't wait to get a picture of Connor in that hat. The sight was more hilarious than he had thought it would be. He had thought he would have to get Connor wasted to get him to even try it on.

"Same as ever."

"Fuck. Sauced yet?"

"Gettin' started when I left to come get ya."

"Hey, Conn?"

"Aye?"

"Let's repair the pews in the church while we're home."

"Aye, we'll do it."

"And let's not spend nights at the pub. Let's go down by the Sea."

"Aye, we'll do it."

"This is our last summer together."

"What do ya mean, Murph?" Connor asked, giving him a puzzled look.

"I suspect yer gettin' married next year."

"Aye, we're plannin' on it." Connor answered, breaking into a wide grin. "But, Murph, Leah and I were thinkin' we could all wind up in the same place, the three of us, if ya wanted."

That place would be Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard Medical School for Murph and Harvard University, Department of Biology for Leah and an engineering firm that specialized in ecosystem restoration for Connor.


	13. Wedding Bells

A/N: Thanks to all of you following this story and everyone leaving feedback. Your lovely reviews give me a goofy Connor grin!

"Murph, wake up. Murph!"

He was vaguely aware of Leah's voice, as he tried to remain asleep. Finals were over and he could sleep all he wanted. Leah had probably come over early and wanted to go to breakfast. "Please, Murph, get up. We need a favor."

"What?" he groaned, hearing rummaging in his closet.

"We're on our way to Emerald Isle to get married and we want you there with us."

He opened his eyes and saw Leah standing over him in a sundress.

"Ah, don't ya look pretty today, Leah." He said with a smile, pulling her down to sit on the edge of his bed.

"Like a bride?"

He grinned and nodded. She grinned back.

Connor pitched some khaki shorts and Murph's favorite white cotton shirt from Costa Rica on the bed.

"Our appointment with the justice of the peace is at ten-thirty, so you've got to get moving, buster. We'll stop and get you one of those grease biscuits you love so much from Bojangles." Leah said, yanking the sheets off him. "Andiamo! Conn, grab his swim trunks too and his hat, so he doesn't get sunburned."

"So this is it? Yer really doin' it?" Murphy looked from one to the other.

"Aye. And doin' it the way we want to do it." Connor replied, winking at Leah, who had no intention of converting to Catholicism so that she could be married in Ma's church. Murphy knew that Leah also did not want to undergo the ordeal of an enormous Charleston society wedding. Murphy knew that they just wanted to get married.

On the beach would be the way they would want it too. He should have seen it coming.

He would remember the day as one of the most perfect of his life until he died. He learned on that day that his brother's happiness was integral to his own, something he was sure Connor had always known. Being vicariously happy for Connor also was something he realized was a means to his own happiness.

He did not let himself feel jealousy that day as the girl he loved became his brother's wife. He felt hope that he would be able to recognize the qualities he loved in Leah in another. He had been learning to love her the only way he could now: as a sister. It was primarily because that was what she wanted him to do. Knowing he owed Connor respect was secondary as little as he wanted to admit it to himself. At least he could admit it.

There was something else he realized in himself that day for them: a fierce sense of protectiveness, because he knew that they had found something lasting and rare, and he vowed to do whatever he could to preserve it.

He took countless pictures of them that day, as they splashed around the shore. Leah would grab the camera from him and take pictures of Connor and him assing around. Everyone, including both Leah's parents and Ma, liked the same picture best, the one Leah had asked the JP to take of the three of them. That photo would be duplicated and framed countless times to reside in the homes, offices and even the bar of their loved ones.

Soon, the photo sat in a frame on Connor's desk in his posh office, in an identical frame on Leah's tiny student desk in her grad student office, and it was stuck to his bulletin board in his even tinier cubicle which would be his for the next two years until he started rotations.

In an understatement, Ma did not take well to Connor and Leah's decision to elope. Much shouting and cursing was involved. Murph wondered if the entire town could hear her and people in neighboring towns as well. Ma MacManus always had quite a pair of lungs on her and was known to exercise them often but this was a case in the extreme. Despite the fact that it was Connor delivering the news, he and Leah could hear Ma's every response, especially when she discovered that Leah had not converted to Catholicism. Murph swore he heard Leah chuckle, damn papist bitch, under her breath, although her expression did not change and she appeared to be reading the newspaper. He wasn't sure if she had added a "fat" somewhere in there or if he had hallucinated the whole thing.

Murph got hung up with her on the phone too, being told it was his responsibility to convert Leah and not to come home until he had accomplished that task. He knew better than to look at Leah, because he knew he would burst out laughing and then Ma's hand would somehow come through the phone and pinch his earlobe off.

The Winslows, on the other hand, had no problem at all with the decision. Leah's father, in fact, was rather pleased and said he had a proposition to make with them in a few days when they arrived for Graduation.

The proposition was that since Leah had always been such a good daughter and had earned a National Science Foundation fellowship for her graduate studies and, moreover, had the acumen to elope instead of demand party after party on top of a wedding to outdo a debutante; it was time to go house hunting in Cambridge, where he was prepared to pay a down payment on a home in the sum that he had budgeted for the nightmare of a wedding they had avoided. And they were really not going to take a honeymoon either? He was not going to have to send them to New Zealand? Consider that part of your wedding present then.

He says we need to build equity, Connor told Murph later. It's a shitload of money, Murph, a shitload. But it makes the monthly house payment cheaper than what we'd pay for rent and we'd own it. Leah poked her head in the room and said, and remember, guys, when dealing with the Winslow clan, in the immortal words of The Borg Collective, "Resistance is futile".

They found a four bedroom, two bathroom in a safe, charming neighborhood of Cambridge. The house was structurally sound but it needed work. The hardwood floors were in terrible shape. Not a single cabinet in the house closed properly. The tiles in the bathrooms were loose, quite a few missing. There was rotten wood on the exterior of the 1930's bungalow. The windows needed reglazing. But Leah and Connor took one look at it and loved it. Murph, Leah asked, as they stepped inside a spacious room with hardwood floors and windows looking into a backyard he was certain she was itching to landscape, do you like this room?

Once all the repairs were made, it would be their home.

No need to buy furniture, said Leah's parents, who were ecstatic about their baby's new house. Apparently, the attic of the Winslow house was full of antiques. Murph found himself sleeping in a four poster mahogany bed that had belonged to Clarissa Winslow's great aunt Lydia. He was pretty sure that the super soft sheets Clarissa had put on the bed while he was up on the roof had not come from the attic when he saw a price tag that had been clipped off in the garbage can. He enjoyed the time Leah's mother spent with them that summer. Leah's dad had to stay in Charleston with work, so George and her mother headed up to Massachusetts to help the three MacManuses settle in. Come on, Murphy, she would say in her elegant Southern drawl, let's go have lunch. She would hook her arm through his and they would wander the quaint area of Cambridge until she located where she wanted them to eat or what she wanted to purchase for the house. We'll take them something back to eat, she would say of Leah and Connor, who would remain working on the house. The weather was usually pleasant, and Clarissa would choose a restaurant with an outdoor patio, where she and Murph would sit and she would somehow draw him out. Somewhere between a mother and a friend, Clarissa had the amazing ability to make him talk. He looked forward to their coffee breaks and lunches. He wasn't doomed, he thought, to a woman like Ma, as he sat across from this soft-spoken woman, elegant in her linen workshirt, khaki pants and pearls in her ears. Although she had not been formally employed as a registered nurse before her daughter was born, she spent most of her waking hours volunteering her skills at a Charleston free clinic as she had for years, since Leah was old enough to go to school. She told him she had met Leah's father at her first job in Charleston, where he was doing his residency. Maybe he would find the love of his life in his residency, he thought. He told her that he did not really care where he wound up working at this point as long as he was working. Clarissa understood how he had felt in Calcutta at the Home for the Dying, when he described the frantic need that had overtaken him to immerse himself in ministering to the sick. He saw it in the look on her face as he spoke. There would be a woman for him. God bless Ma, but he didn't want a woman like her.

So the summer was spent repairing the house. Murph and Connor had always repaired things for the elderly people in their town when they were kids. And they had always taken care of the church. They had always been fanatical about it really. This was the perfect place for Connor, Murph thought, as they climbed ladders and sanded and caulked and grouted. Leah painted the walls colors she and her mother had chosen and reupholstered the old furniture.

Connor started work two weeks before Leah and Murph started school. The house was nearly finished by then and starting to look like a showplace. Of course, Clarissa "just happened to find" an oriental rug in the attic for the living room amongst other decorative items. Their house wasn't like Ma's where anything that was nice usually got broken by Ma stumbling over it or her having a fit and breaking it. Ma's rage was such a mystery sometimes. He supposed she had never forgiven their Da for leaving and dying in that mysterious explosion. The story seemed so rehearsed each time he and Connor asked any of the relatives. It was told to them almost verbatim by anyone they asked. Where had the money come from for school, he wondered, but had never dared ask Ma.


	14. Tattoos and Turkeys

A/N: Murph's mouth is going to get us up to a higher rating. But his crime is in self defense!

"Mama, I just don't think we can get away. I've got a huge pop gen exam the Tuesday after. And Murph is swamped. We could send your darling baby boy though." Leah told her mother, sticking her tongue out at Connor, who grinned. She knew he loved being the adored son-in-law who could do no wrong.

Then her mother made a suggestion that seemed wonderful. She and her father would just come to Boston. After all, her mother told her, she did miss her boys. She was certain Murphy needed to be taken to lunch.

"Mama, you could hurt my feelings."

However, two weeks before Thanksgiving, news that was not entirely unexpected arrived. Aunt Sue and Uncle Russ were coming too. And that was fantastic. But they were bringing Christine.

"Oh, Mama, no. Christine? You've got to be joking."

"Baby, she has really changed. She's living at home now."

"Oh, did they finally throw her out of the trailer park?"

"Leah, shame on you!" her mother tried to chastise, but she heard her mother's hand go over the receiver and she knew her mother was laughing.

"I know you're laughing, Mama."

She heard her mother clear her throat.

"Now, honey, don't overreact when I tell you this."

"Is she bringing a hooligan?"

She heard her mother sigh. "No. Sue—well—Sue wants—"

"This must be really bad."

"Well, Sue wants Christine to meet Murphy. She thinks Murph would be a lovely husband for Christine."

Murph and Connor were both listening to Leah talk to her mother with amusement. Apparently, someone named Christine who must be really hideous was coming up with the family for Thanksgiving. This Christine person must have been kept hidden from them the way they had kept their creepy cousin Liam away from Leah when she had visited them. Then Leah's eyes settled on him, wide and mortified.

"Oh, Mama, no. That will not do. Tell Aunt Sue he's got a girlfriend. Better yet tell her he's gay."

He eyed Leah suspiciously, as she began to pace around the living room.

"Well, he's gay when it comes to Christine! No, no, she's not coming here. She's nasty, Mother. She's not sitting on our sofas! I spent hours recovering them!"

What was this gay business and why was she staring at him? And you knew Leah was fired up when she called Clarissa "Mother" instead of the usual honey-coated "Mama" for their daily conversations.

"Mother, no. No, this won't do at all—Mother, she had sex with that tattooed monster in our room at Hilton Head and I woke up in the middle of the night and had to see it—no, I will not stop. I was ten. Ten years old! I think she got crabs from that one or maybe that was a case of the Clap. I can't remember. You can ask Daddy but I bet he can't remember because he has written so many scripts of antibiotics for her. She is not coming here. And she is not getting anywhere near him. I bet she has herpes and she is not sitting on my furniture, and that's final!"

By this time, Connor was howling with laughter. But he was staying quiet. He had a feeling that he was the "him" being discussed.

"You don't have to tell Aunt Sue a thing. I'll call her myself! But that nasty, dirty cretin is not coming in my house."

Connor was clutching his sides and tears were coming out of his eyes as he tried to tell her not to talk to her mother that way. Murph remained silent and contemplated leaving the room. Then suddenly Leah sat back down on the sofa, her face paled and she became silent.

"Alright—yes, Mama--alright, Mama. I love you too. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

She hung up the phone and he watched her take a deep breath.

"Guys, life has handed us some serious lemons." She said seriously. "My cousin Christine, who has been MIA in various trailer parks in the southern United States for the past ten years--you know that I try not to be judgmental of others—you buggers, you're supposed to be supportive of me and agree here. Fine. Well, Christine is six years older than I am, and Aunt Sue and Uncle Russ gave her every opportunity in the world. Private school, trips all over the world when she was young, everything she ever wanted. If she wanted it, it was hers. But she was always out of control, always getting into trouble. Her boyfriends always looked like they belonged in jail. They always had tattoos. There was this one that had them up and down his arms and he wore one of those undershirts you always associate with some middle-aged man with a big beer belly, eating greasy hot dogs—"

"A wifebeater?" Connor chuckled.

"Absolutely. He looked exactly like someone who would beat their wife."

"That's what they call the shirt, Leah."

"Yes, that creep was wearing a wifebeater and he just looked dirty with all those tattoos--like he would have body odor."

"So ya think people who have tattoos look like they'd have b.o., eh?" Connor was laughing at his wife. "I always wanted a tattoo."

"You watch yourself, Connor MacManus. Anyway, the problem is they're bringing her for Thanksgiving and Aunt Sue wants her to meet you, Murph. She's been treated for venereal diseases more times than I can count. So to take countermeasures, clearly, we're going to have to find a sex shop. I'm going to get the phonebook right now."

He looked at Connor, who returned the same puzzled look. Sex shop? What the fuck?

"Darlin', we don't quite follow your logic." Connor said, chuckling.

"Well, where else would we get a chastity belt? I guess we could make one. But we need one that locks—with titanium locks."

"Do ya really think I'm gonna like her, Leah? You've painted such an attractive picture, ya know." Murph said, smiling. "I think I can say no, contrary ta what ya think of me."

"It's not that, Murph. I'm afraid she will try to rape you. And I bet you anything she has herpes. And she didn't get it from a Jacuzzi, let me tell you. And at least the last time I saw her, she was—" Leah began with a dramatic pause. "A smoker."

"I don't think I'll be in any danger." He laughed. "Besides, taking a dump or a leak in a chastity belt would be a bitch."

"We could always cut appropriate holes." Connor snickered.

"Murph, need your help with something." Connor said, running into the study the following weekend, where he was reading. Leah was out working in the garden. He had heard the lawnmower start a few minutes ago.

"What?"

"Wanna play a joke on Leah?"

"Always."

On his lunch hour the day before, Connor said he had bought a wifebeater and gone into an art supply and after asking a clerk, found the best markers to produce the most realistic fake tattoos and transfer paper.

"Oh, she is gonna kill ya, brother."

While taking calls for the rest of the afternoon, Connor said he had penciled all sorts of designs until he decided on a big heart with her name in it to go on his bicep.

As Murph colored the giant heart, they listened intently for the lawnmower to turn off, knowing their time was limited and they would get busted.

"Ya know, I always did want a tattoo." Connor said.

"I think this is as close as you better get, Conn." He laughed. "Take a look."

"Looks real. The lady at the shop was right. Ha! Okay, time ta go get the hotdogs and park me ass on the sofa."

Murph told him to rub a little chili and mustard on the shirt. Then he went back to the study to read while Connor waited for Leah to come in from mowing the yard.

Connor appeared at the study door a few minutes later, frowning.

"She just headed to the shower, commenting that something in the house was 'stinky'."

"She'll be back out in a minute. Go turn on a football game really loud. That'll get her attention. Ya know how she likes to lie in the bed and read after showering when she mows. Make her come out ta bitch at ya."

About five minutes passed and Connor was back. "She just hollered from the bedroom door."

"Go offer her a weiner." Murph smirked, then grimaced. "Ya do stink, Connor. That chili reeks. What the fuck?"

Oh god, the pouty Connor face. No doubt he was expecting a big hoopla and a fantastic roll in the sack afterward. Murph had learned their routine. And when the hell had he become an enabler for his brother to get so well laid?

"Okay, go get on the sofa. I'll go ask for help on some biochem. And one day, you will return the favor."

Connor looked like a happy puppy when he leapt onto the sofa and turned on a random American football game. Murph tapped on the bedroom door.

"Yes?"

Shite, she sounded snarky.

"Hey, Leah, ya decent?" he asked softly through the door.

"Oh, Murph, yes."

Now she sounded less snarky.

He walked in where she was piled up in their bed under the fluffy white down comforter and propped up on pillows reading a novel. This was her Saturday afternoon treat for mowing, she had told them.

"Good grief, why does he have that TV so loud? I know he's trying to get me to go out there but I'm not doing it. If he wants something, he can come in here. Why does he torture me?"

"He's a retard. I don't want ta interrupt yer 'Leah Time', but would ya mind looking at some biochem with me—just when ya get a chance though? There's a concept question that I don't want the prof ta call me out in class on Monday."

"No problem." She said, getting out of the bed in her favorite polar fleece pajama pants, one of Connor's old t-shirts and thick wool socks. "Is the TV bugging you too?"

"It's seriously fuckin' loud."

"Connor, are your ears going?" she snapped, as she padded into the study. Murph, who was walking behind her, just shrugged at his brother, who forlornly turned down the volume on the television.

"I think you'll be fine if you get a question on it." Leah told him and walked out of the study.

A moment later he heard her scream and he ran out of the study to watch what transpired.

"I knew I smelled something foul. Now I know what it is." She said, one eyebrow cocked and walked straight to the bedroom and shut the door.

The twins laughed for a few moments, then he said, "Go do your penance while I just study, damn ya."

Connor finally emerged around dinnertime, looking like a well stroked cat, the fake tattoo long since showered away.

"Looks like you did a good penance." Murph commented, peering into the refrigerator.

Connor shoved him out of the way. "I'll cook, ya tosser."

"Still hates tattoos?"

"Oh yeah."

The closer to the ETA of the Christine Creature, the more curious he and Connor became about the girl and the more they tormented Leah, whom they had never seen in such a snarky state. Apparently, Christine's idea of babysitting Leah as a child had been to duct tape her to a chair and threaten her with scary monsters in the closet if she told her parents that she had been basically bound and gagged, Leah told them angrily. And the bitch went through my Halloween candy and took whatever she wanted. And she ripped the head off my Han Solo action figure.

Murph had been ready to say he and Connor regularly fought over Halloween candy and tried to tie each other to the bed while they were sleeping when they were kids, but he understood her wrath over Han Solo.

Definite sea hag, Murph thought, when Christine entered with her parents and the Winslows. She wasn't that old, but as they say: it's not the time, it's the mileage. Blond hair with a crispy texture that Leah said came from years of peroxide usage. Features weren't so bad. Bright blue eyes. Contacts, Leah told the twins. Curves in the right places, he commented loudly enough to Connor so that Leah would hear him. Implants, dipshit. Why do you think they're sitting right under her collarbone, you moron? He and Connor snickered, enjoying Leah's unusual behavior. Nice tan, Murph could not believe Connor had actually had the audacity to say. Well, yes, he could, as much as time as Leah spent telling Connor to put on sunscreen, he could totally believe it. Fake bake, you jackass, she said, not even looking up from a cookbook. Bet she'd show you her fake baked fake boobs, you idiots, if you asked. Now are you fucksticks going to help cook or not?

You knew Leah was tense if she said "The Big F" as she called it. Did she just call them "fucksticks"? Wonder where she got that one.

Christine wanted to go to a real Irish pub.

Somehow Leah, Connor and Murphy were forced into this chore, leaving the parents to chat around the living room, where Connor and Murphy had built a nice cozy fire. Leah wanted to sit in front of it and hold George. Connor wanted to sit in front of it and hold Leah, while she held George. Murphy was considering going down to volunteer at a local soup kitchen and wanted to do anything other than go anywhere with Christine, who he had decided after thirty-six hours of observation and limited interaction was a younger American version of their Ma—albeit with a belly button ring that had a stone in it that she changed out to match every outfit and a tattoo on her lower back.

Perhaps this was the source of Leah's hatred of tattoos. Now, Christine did not have body odor but she did wear a perfume that Murph found more repugnant than he likely would have found a laundry basket of jock straps belonging to any NFL team following the Super Bowl (or as Leah called it, the Super Bowel).

Christine did not have a proper coat for the weather, which set a bad tone for the evening, because Leah was guilted into loaning her one by a simple raised brow from Clarissa. And naturally, the first thing that Christine did when they walked out of the house to leave was light a cigarette, causing Leah to mumble about her cashmere coat. Murph thought the smoke smelled better than that fucking perfume, whispered that to Leah, who chuckled, and reminded her to just get really drunk and the idea of Christine might perhaps become funny.

There was a pub near school that actually had some good brews from the UK on tap and was a place he went occasionally with a few people he had met in his class. The pub owner, a Dubliner himself, liked the idea that there was a real Irishman at Harvard, the students of which were the majority of his customers. Murph had tried to teach his friends and other patrons as much proper pub behavior as possible but time was limited with schoolwork.

Christine, as suspected, was a "lite" beer drinker, so they started her off with a pint of Bass. She looked hilariously out of place in her light blue velour get-up, which hugged her ass and showed off the pierced navel. Naturally, the stone was light blue tonight. The outfit also showed off three terms Murph found particularly amusing. First, the outfit revealed the **whale tail**, which would be the top of her thong underwear. Leah called thong underwear dental floss for your crack or an Insta-Wedgie or a wedgie you were stupid enough to buy. Secondly, the outfit showcased Christine's **muffin top**, which was the section of her torso that spilled over the hip hugging pants. Leah's synonym for a muffin top was a Dunlop, as in when your gut dun' lopped over your belt. Thirdly, the outfit gave a full view of the **tramp stamp**, which Murph had learned was a lower back tattoo. Murph loved learning new American colloquialisms.

Yes, yes, drink up. No, Sean doesn't serve margaritas. Here's a Belhaven for ya. It's part of yer heritage. Make yer Da proud. Murph said he really didn't want to play pool. Leah giggled into his ear that he'd be able to get a better look at her "balloon boobs" if he agreed to a game. Okay, he would agree to a game of darts. Careful of her boobs, Connor snickered, catching him by the sleeve, before Christine pulled him away to the back of the bar.

"So my parents really like you." Christine told him, when he returned with the box of darts.

"That's quite nice of them. They're lovely people." He said, focusing on opening the dart box. "I assume ya know how ta play then?"

"I think you might have a wild side." Christine said, drawing up very close to him. All he could smell was that horrible perfume and cigarettes. If she would just down the Belhaven, she would smell a thousand times better but it still wouldn't be enough.

"Of course, I do." He said, tired of her coming on to him. All the brushes of his thigh at the bar, all the licking of her lips, all the intentional leaning over to expose the fake tits. It was all pretty ridiculous. He was willing to play darts but he was not willing for her to roll up on him.

"What do you like?" she breathed into his ear, putting her hand on his chest.

"Best?"

"Mmm-hmm." Her hand had begun to migrate lower.

He remembered an article in some insert in the campus newspaper when he was a freshman at Duke. It was an article designed to encourage safe sexual practices but had certainly made him and Connor look at public toilets in a totally different way. Murph thought of the night when the three of them were studying for finals in the stacks of the West Campus Library since their normal places were taken. Connor excused himself to the bathroom and came running back excitedly, exclaiming, "I found one! I found one! I found a real one!" Leah wanted to see it too, so Connor stood guard, while she and Murph went in and inspected the hitherto considered mythical object.

"There's nothin' like seein' a huge cock shoved through a glory hole and not knowin' whose it is, but knowin' it's there for ye to have yer way with."

He had known that article would come in handy one day. Christine decided she didn't want to play darts after all.

Touch my dick and duct tape Leah to a chair? Oh no, you will pay.

"Come to an Irish pub and not taste of the Guinness? Are ya mad, woman?" he snorted. "Sean, give tha lady here a pint. Aye, Christine, it won't make ya fat like yer crappy American beer. Guinness will make ya take a big, black crap in tha morning."  
Connor and Leah were laughing. He had a tale to tell them back at the house. Christine had returned back to the bar in a bit of a huff after the glory hole comment, just as he had planned.

"Drink up, young lady. Ya wanted ta go ta an Irish pub now."

Christine sipped at the Guinness with a scowl on her face, as the three of them shared a look between them. Murphy grinned at Connor. Connor grinned back. Leah shook her head at them. They nodded vehemently. Leah put her hand over her eyes and just chuckled.

"Alright, who's ready for some Nobgoblin?" Murphy roared, and the other patrons stared at him blankly as expected. "Four pints of Hobgoblin, please, Sean."

Sean laughed, "God, I miss the UK sometimes."

At the pubs at home, people would shout "I want Nobgoblin". Nobgoblin was the unofficial name for Hobgoblin, a rather tasty British ale, which Murphy would never admit he preferred to Guinness. You could, however, get away with drinking Hobgoblin amidst other Irish for the comedic value of shouting that you wanted "nobgoblin," which was also slang for fellatio.

"Why does he keep shouting about wanting nobgoblin?" Murph heard Christine ask Leah and Connor.

"Because he's a retard." His brother said, laughing as Murph pounded the bar shouting about nobgoblin over and over much to Sean's amusement.

"I want nobgoblin too!" Leah yelled, positioning herself under Murph's arm.

"Ye don't have a nob, ya wee idiot!" he laughed. "Havin' fun now?"

"Actually, yes."


	15. Moses Enters Canaan

"What?" he asked, as Leah and Connor came running out of their bedroom into the kitchen, where he was shoveling cereal into his mouth and reading the newspaper. He had an hour before he should head out for the hospital. Drink coffee, take a good crap, have a good hot shower and head out at his own leisure. What the fuck were they on about? They never got up this early—well, never emerged this early.

They looked at each other and did not respond but both of them looked absolutely terrified. Then they proceeded to stare at him with desperate looks on their faces.

"What?"

All of a sudden Leah burst into tears and Connor put his arms around her. Connor actually looked just as upset as she did.

"What the fuck?" he demanded, standing up and rushing over to them. "Are you hurt? Leah, darlin'? What is going on? Connor, what is wrong with her?"

"We found a lump in her breast." Connor nearly whispered, his eyes huge and boring into Murph's asking for help.

Holy Mary, Mother of God. Calm. Textbook answers only. Can't show any emotion.

"Leah, luv, you'll need a mammogram. It's probably completely benign. Now, does your mother have fibrocystic breasts?" he asked calmly, as calmly as possible, the fucking pink ribbon pinned on his scrubs catching the corner of his eye. Fucking Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

"I don't know, Murph." She sobbed into Connor's chest.

"Where are you in your menstrual cycle?"

"Two weeks away from my period."

He nodded. "Is the mass hard? Round? Amorphous? Does it move when you touch it?"

"It's a lump, Murph." Connor said desperately, holding Leah tightly. "Just felt like a lump."

"Leah, darlin', have you had any discharge from your nipple? Does the surface of the breast look any different than before? Size change? Redness? Anything strange?"

Then they asked him.

"Absolutely not! I will schedule a mammogram for this afternoon. But no fuckin' way!"

They didn't let up. They were scared, insistent and as always in agreement with one another.

"In case you two hadn't noticed, I don't have tha fuckin' degree yet. And I'm neither a gynecologist nor an oncologist."

They were unrelenting.

"Is this Official Fuck with Murphy's Mind Day? Don't ya think this scares me too? Ye'll be able ta meet with one of the most qualified doctors in the world within a day. But oh no, let's torture Murph. And while we're on the topic, ya fuckers, you, Leah, are the gold standard to which I compare every potential woman I meet. Connor, what the fuck is wrong with ya? And you, Leah? Think of me as Moses and your breasts as Canaan. Not allowed to go there. Access denied."

Damn the two of them. They wouldn't shut up. All he wanted was his coffee. And to start the day over again.

"I don't see how me examining her--yer breast is going ta solve anything. Ye will have ta have a mammogram and if there really is a lump, then a biopsy. None of those things are things I can do or expedite."

Shite. They latched onto the "if there really is a lump."

Connor reminded him of the day he had come in and drank an entire six pack of Belhaven pints one after the other. (Don't tell anyone that they preferred it to Guinness when it came to bottles. Damn the bloody Scots for their excellent brew.) The body holds no mystery, he said over and over to his brother that evening, haunted by the cadavers and how they had ceased to be people, just parts fused together. And then when he was on the train returning to the house, he watched people. Just parts fused together, inhaling and exhaling.

"Murph, please. So we don't think we're overreacting." Leah said, picking up his hand. "I'll know by the look on your face if it's going to be okay."

"Ye'll know no such thing, Leah Winslow MacManus! I can't make a diagnosis here! I'm a bloody second year medical student! I don't know me ass from me fuckin' elbow!" he yelled, then felt like a bastard, seeing her face fall. He put his arms around her. "Connor, take her into yer bedroom. Close the door. Remove yer top. Get in yer bed. Pull the sheet up over yer breasts. Give me a minute to wash my hands and I'll be in."

Fucking hell, he thought, as he lathered his hands. He could feel his brother's fear. He was more afraid than she was. As he scrubbed his forearms, he shuddered to think of what Leah's mortality would mean to his brother. Connor, who was so strong, so willful and perseverant, would fucking fall apart without her. That kind of love was frightening. It made his brother so vulnerable. And yet so happy.

He tapped on the door, terrified of what he was going to find in there. What a way to start the day. Dredging up convoluted feelings he tried to keep buried and a possible tumor associated with the woman around whom those convoluted feelings revolved.

"Come in."

**Her** body would always hold mystery for him. And he had long since come to the conclusion that it was not because she shared it with Connor. His eyes skimmed over a sight he knew his twin never took for granted. What he wouldn't give to see her in a strapless dress, her glowing skin with the uneven tan lines from various tank tops because she insisted on mowing the yard with no help from the twins. Her lightly sunkissed (she always wore SPF 45) shoulders and clavicle, the rest creamy skin. Connor never needed reminding to kiss that clavicle. Murph had seen him bury his face in her throat countless times to receive a pleased nuzzle from her. Yes, Connor loved her well, as he bloody well better have.

"I'm going to place my hands under the sheet, so ya won't be exposed, Leah, during the examination." He said clinically, looking directly into her eyes. "Now, what I need ya to do is lift yer hands over yer head. Connor, why don't ya hold her hand, while I do this, so this will be less traumatic. At any point, if ya feel uncomfortable, Leah, please do not hesitate ta tell me."

"I'm not worried, Murph." Leah said, lifting her arms, and Murphy pushed the sheet down, so no more skin than necessary would show.

"Well, maybe Connor can hold my hand then." He said gently. He rubbed his hands together to warm them. "I want ya to tell me if ya feel any soreness at any point during the examination."

"You sound like a doctor." Leah and Connor said at the exact same time and chuckled together.

"Here it is. It's round and rubbery. Do feel how it moves when I palpate it? No lump is good, Leah, but this one is probably more desirable than others you could have." It felt like a classic fibroadenoma. He found it immediately. "How did I do?"

Leah sat up and put her arms around him and cried. "Ssh, darlin'. We're gonna get ya a mammogram and into the best doc ya can imagine. Ah, Leah, Connor and I won't let anything happen to ya, luv. Lovely, Leah, sweet darlin', look at me."

She let go of him and he was careful to keep her wrapped in the sheet.

"See my retard brother next to ya, the one ya married? He's going to help me out now. So I want you ta lie back down and get comfortable. And, Connor, I am going ta turn around and I want ya ta take the sheet down and make a visual examination and answer my questions."

It turned out to be a fibroadenoma, completely benign, and even though Murphy was flattered, he really didn't want to work in oncology but told the doctor that he would keep a rotation in mind.

A/N: Poor Murph!


	16. Bloodwork

"Got time to come back to the hospital with me for a few minutes?" Murph asked her, as they ate lunch in the warm spring sun.

"Sure. Have you got some lonely patients in need of another friendly face?" she asked.

"Always." He answered, then smirked for a moment. Then he put on his serious very-soon-to-be Dr. MacManus face. "Leah, I want to draw some blood."

"What?"

"I think you and Connor may have gotten your wish. And not for a lack of trying, might I add. The walls are not as thick as ya think." Murphy smiled at her.

She felt her face go red. "Have you told him?"

"No. Not until we're sure. Don't want to get him excited and then disappoint him. Besides it's your news to tell."

"Do you really think I'm pregnant, Murph? It's time for my period but it was always erratic before I took pills." Leah asked, afraid to even hope. They had thrown away her birth control pills four months before, agreeing that her research was at a point that she would be able to finish without having to do strenuous field work and mainly just finish experiments in the lab and write her dissertation. Connor would be able to take the baby with him to work every day once it was old enough to leave the house. The firm he had joined was so wonderful. He would even be able to take "maternity" leave. And he was making such good money even with the house payment. Sure things would be tight at first. But she did have her fellowship, and she would make more in her post doc and things would be fine. They would be fine. Even on one income, we'd be fine, Leah.

"I don't want to get your hopes up either but yes, I do think you are. Boobs are bigger, always tired these days yet ravaging my lucky brother like there was no tomorrow."

"We don't make that much noise, Murph."

"That's what you think." He snickered, then threw his head back and started crying out "Connor, Connor, Connor, oh yes. Right there, oh, Connor. Connor—"

People were starting to stare and Leah was horrified, well, maybe only slightly horrified, because it was actually hilarious seeing her favorite goofball in the world in his scrubs faking orgasmic bliss with his own brother in imitation of her. That was Murphy to a tee. He never minded making an ass out of himself to get a laugh. She clamped her hand over his mouth.

"You're absolutely hideous, Murph."

"I do my best." He said, grabbing her hand. "Wanna do this?"

"Yes." She said, brimming with excitement. Then she thought of something. "Connor will be upset if you know before he does."

They had begun walking toward the hospital.

"Aye, it'd go over like a turd in a punchbowl. Already thought of it. I'm going to submit the blood then I'll have the lab put the results in a sealed envelope for ya. I won't look at them." He told her. "I still think you're going ta be a mommy though. I'd say I'd bet ya a pint, but yer drinkin' days are over for a while, I'm thinking, love. How about a fruit smoothie with a shot of wheat grass?"

"How long will it take to get the results?"

"I'll bring them home tonight."

"I wonder when Murph's going to get home." Leah said to Connor, idly running her fingers through his thick, silky hair, as they sat in the window seat after dinner. She was watching for the car headlights to pull into the driveway. He was sipping a glass of her favorite Bordeaux and shrugged after a briefly raised brow when she said she didn't want him to pour her a glass.

"Soon, probably. He always calls when he's going ta be really late." Connor said. He nuzzled her neck. She could feel the smile on his lips. "Missed a good dinner."

"So you think you're quite the chef now, do you?"

She and Connor had taken a series of cooking classes on Saturdays at a local cooking shop near his office, where he liked to wander in after work and pick up unusual spices and cookbooks and gadgets for the kitchen. Connor and his gadgets. This had been a steady progression after countless holiday meals in her mother's kitchen. She knew Connor practically lusted to recreate that kitchen, often on the phone with her mother asking how to cook this or that and idly chatting away with his second most favorite woman in the world, he promised. Many times he would hang up without even calling Leah to the phone.

Leah would have been happy enough with takeout food or microwave dinners when she arrived home from the lab but there was Connor usually waiting at the stove with something homemade to eat. Tonight's dinner was excellent, pasta with a porcini mushroom sauce and bread from Connor's favorite bakery, some rustic Italian bread with parmesan cheese lurking tastily in its recipe .

"Aye."

He was playful, setting his wine aside on a table he and Murphy had built from wood brought back from the Irish coast. He turned and looked into her eyes and smiled that loving smile she adored.

"You're silly." She said, as she often did, when she could see how much he loved her in his eyes and it overwhelmed her. "So silly."

"So you tell me."

He moved closer to her and kissed her temple as he shifted her legs into his lap. He began rubbing the sore muscles in the back of her neck as he kissed her cheek, then her lips. Her neck was always sore from lab work and he knew it and knew exactly where to massage to make her clothes nearly magically disappear.

"Connor, the neighbors." She said gently, as he began unbuttoning her shirt, but she did not really care that they were sitting in the window seat in the front of the house with the lights on, a veritable showcase.

"True." He smiled into her face. "Neck rub and naked husband waiting in the bedroom."

"Then who would you be?" she grinned. "You certainly look like my husband. Goodness gracious, I didn't realize he was naked and waiting in my bedroom."

"I guess you better go investigate."

"You sure are frisky, mister." She said, trying to stall him, wanting to wait for Murphy to arrive. He chuckled and nuzzled her neck.

"I guess I could go clean the kitchen." Connor said, sounding a bit disappointed when she did not encourage him.

"I'll help you clean later. For now, relax and have your glass of wine. Tell me about your day. Tell me some of those brilliant ideas in that beautiful head of yours, my love." She said, smiling at him, squeezing his hand, drawing a blush in his cheeks. He had never realized how magnificent he was and it always caught him off guard when she made mention of it. Recently, he seemed more beautiful than ever, more relaxed, as he could actually say he loved his job, as he doted on her and Murphy too, because he would never break that habit. Their lives almost seemed like a wonderful dream.

He put his head in her lap and began to talk and finally headlights turned into the driveway.

"Murph's home." She said, nearly jumping to her feet.

There had been a back log in the lab all day. Then the techs changed shifts, and Tina who had promised she would get the results for him by five had left before getting the blood in, so he had to weasel the test out of another tech during his afternoon break. Janey laughed when he called and told her he had just prostituted himself to get some lab results moved up in the queue and would she consider it cheating if he took a 250 pound lab tech to lunch. You never know, Murphy, you might decide you like her more than me. More cushion for the pushin'.

They saw each other every other weekend usually, when she drove up from New Haven. There was a post doctoral opportunity on the horizon for her at the American Academy in Rome. That was two years ahead but he was pretty sure that he knew what he wanted. And he didn't want to wait until after his residency, which he certainly wouldn't do in Rome. He had an offer from Yale for the following year but the only reason he would go live in that utter shithole of New Haven was to be with Janey. But not if she was just going to up and take off to Italy for three years. Yale would be a great residency, but not worth being so far from Connor, Leah and his soon-to-be niece or nephew. He wanted a house. He wanted a wife. He wanted—he wanted what Connor and Leah had.

But sometimes—well, lots of times--when he was with Janey, he thought of Connor and Leah and how the passion of his brother's life was Leah and hers, him. And it was during those times, he was filled with gnawing doubts.

But he did love Janey. Of course, he loved her. Of course, he did. The way they would go for a walk and she would talk and talk and talk. Oh boy, she definitely was a talker. It was kind of funny looking back on it. He had thought she was so shy in college, always at Leah's side with her shy smile and occasional soft-spoken quips about this or that. He had heeded Leah's warning about flirting gratuitously with Janey back then. But one weekend the previous year when she had come up from New Haven to visit Leah, he found himself fascinated with her, putting off all his work until Sunday night to tag along with Janey, Leah and Connor. Normally, he would have said a minimally friendly hello and headed off to study at the library or stayed holed up in his room, coming out only to grub on whatever was in the fridge when they were out of the house. That weekend had been different.

He had planned to go to the library like he always did when Janey was there but she arrived early before Connor had gotten back from the grocery store and before Leah had gotten out of the shower. Janey's here, he yelled running into the bathroom where Leah was taking her shower. Are you trying to look at me naked again, you pervert? No, Leah, Janey's at the door and Connor's not back from the store. Well, let her in, fool. Aren't you almost done? Answer the damn door, Murphy. Well, hurry up, since I never know what Leah-approved conversation is. You will be beaten later for that. Lookin' forward ta it. Answer the door, Murph, please.

When he did answer the door, there was Janey.

And she hugged him. Leah hugged him sometimes but usually she was wrestling with him just like a smaller gigglier version of Connor. And those hugs came too few and far between. Some of the nurses at the hospital hugged him and lots of the patients did but it felt different then. He liked being caught off guard like this. This felt awkward and he liked it. He had no control of the outcome of the situation and could not assess a single thing about it. Yes, he heard himself say, I think I can go out tonight with you guys tonight.

Leah snuck into his bedroom that night and clicked on the bedside lamp and gave him a smack to the head, something she had mastered quite well after observation of the practice between the two brothers.

"Murphy MacManus, what the hell do you think you're doing?" she whispered. Janey was sleeping in the bedroom next to his. "You're damn lucky I found you in here."

He knew better than to play dumb. But he really was at a loss for words to explain himself. Best to just be a cheeky bastard.

"Your husband know you're sneaking into his brother's bedroom?"

She thumped his ear for that one. "He sent me in here, you bugger."

"Did ya know that's what I thought my name was for the first four years of my life?" he couldn't help but laugh.

"Murphy, Connor and I want an answer and we want it right now."

The Unified Front, he thought of them, when they ganged up on him. There was no winning. You could be asinine and dig yourself a deeper hole but they were unconquerable.

"I don't know, Leah, okay?"

"Asshole. Asshole. I told you not to—"

"I promise I am not going to be an idiot about this, Leah."

Then she smiled. "Impossible. You're an idiot about everything, Murph."

"Why thank ya."

"But, seriously, why are you doing this? You don't understand. She wants to fall in love. She wants candlelight, roses, poetry."

Nothing would ever be enough to atone for it, would it, he thought at that moment. And I'd willingly lay down my life for you, do anything for you. Respect you, love you. Hurt turned into rage.

"Deep down, ye'll always think I'm a shit, won't ya? Won't ya? Ye said ya forgave me, but ye never did—"

She put her finger to his lips, shaking her head frantically, her eyes suddenly filling with tears. Was she angry, sad, both? He never could gauge this side of Leah and felt like calling for Connor. "Stop it. Use your head not your insecurities. You know that is absolutely not true. Murph, when are you going to let that go? Oh, Murph, you need to forgive yourself. I forgave you about ten minutes after you kissed me, you utter jackass. And if you're trying to be manipulative here, I will beat the Murphy off you."

"Ya keep promisin' me a beatin' and I keep waitin' for one. Leah, if I knew then what I know now, your dream of your first kiss would have come true. And everythin' would have been perfect for ye and my retard brother. Please don't cry."

"He is a retard, isn't he? But he's our retard. And we love him. And, Murph, everything is perfect with the retard, I promise. My life with the retard is like a fairy tale." She laughed weakly, then took a deep breath. "Look, what I am trying to say is you're in your third year of medical school. You're doing well each day to remember to eat three meals. Both of us are. Thank god for Mama Connor. Think about it, Murph. How much time have you got to sweep her off her feet? Because that's what she wants. That's what she has always fantasized about—with you. You, you, Murphy MacManus. So think about it. She has invested seven years of emotional energy into an image of you, while you've got less than twenty-four hours of curiosity invested into her?"

"What kind of fantasies?"

A moment later, Connor slipped in the door. He made them move over on the bed. "Your ass is lucky it's in this room, Murph."

"Unified Front."

"Shut it." Connor said, then looked at Leah. "So what's his deal?"

"You know **he** is right here." He said, giving his brother a smack to the head.

"Obviously he's not masturbating enough." Leah grinned at Connor.

"I fuckin' hate the two of you."

Leah and Connor started laughing and Murphy told them to shut up or they were going to wake up Janey. And just what the fuck were these fantasies about?

"Stop tryin' ta be such a perv, Murph." Connor said.

"No, I think he's serious." Leah told him. Dealing with the Unified Front in the middle of the night was more than a little annoying. Well, maybe a little amusing. "He's not an idiot, sweetheart."

"Aren't ya contradictin' yourself there a bit, Leah?" he chuckled, but was truly serious about this fantasy comment. Leah was extremely insightful and all he needed was to get into a relationship wrought with someone who had unresolved, over-determined issues from childhood and an inability to mature without considerable therapy. His optional psych rotation the previous summer had been extremely interesting and valuable. "Maybe yer right. Maybe 'tis a bad idea."

The Unified Front stared at each other in disbelief. The psych rotation had also given him ample ammunition to fuck with the Unified Front, but maybe they were right.

"I don't have time for anything—barely a cup of coffee." He said, shutting his eyes but thinking that Janey did seem interesting all of a sudden, more confident, pretty and extremely pleasant. Fuck it. Maybe someone else cute would hug him and seem happy to be with him. All he had to do was look at the Unified Front, and the appeal of casual sex dissipated. He did not want to face the emptiness of casual encounters. Being alone was empty enough. Well, he wasn't alone. There was the ever loyal Rosie Palm.

He felt Leah's arms go around him. "Murph, no. We want you to find somebody. We've been looking everywhere."

He opened one eye and he saw his brother nod vehemently. It was as if he had seen a ghost of Connor at six years old, when he was trying his best to convince their Ma of something, like the need of chocolate cake. He smiled broadly. "And what have ya come up with?"

They looked at each other and grimaced. Leah said, "No one good enough. Not even close."

"So you're saying she's not good enough? That's your best friend!" Murphy teased lightly.

Leah sat up and faced both of them. Her voice barely above a whisper, she said, "Murphy, Connor is my best friend. Then there is a second tier into which you and my mother fall."

"I think the order would be reversed if ya were sleeping with me instead." He chuckled, receiving a kick from both of them.

"And how, pray tell, would my mother move up on that list, you big goof?" she asked, shaking her head. "Now listen. Although you're a complete jackass most of the time, you're probably the most intense, driven, spiritual person I've ever known—honey, I'll recount your strong points later—"

"But women find that Heathcliff shit sexier than anything!" Connor snorted indignantly. Watching The Unified Front regroup was always hilarious. Murphy stifled a laugh, especially as Connor's elbow went into his ribs.

"I never said you didn't smolder, Connor. Don't be pouty, although everyone knows Mr. Pouty Pants should patent the sexy pout." Murphy could tell she was trying not to laugh at her husband, whom he could tell was now pleased and reveling in his new prized verb. He could practically see the word "smolder" rolling around his twin's brain. "But, honey, there can be too much Heathcliff. And don't think I don't see you over there all proud of yourself now. And you, stop smirking. And by the way, you're not in the realm of overly-Heathcliff-like, Murph—"

"I hear a 'but" coming."

"But Janey has no sense of altruism." She said quietly, almost imperceptibly.

"No, Leah, he is very Heathcliff-like—"

Connor was obviously still full of himself. Thank god Leah had some sense. He absolutely basked in his wife, went to any length to amuse, amaze or please her. Murphy doubted that he could ever be as selfless as his brother, but he did hope one day that he would be half as foolish over someone.

"Shut it, Conn." He said mirthlessly, when he saw Leah's guilty look. He knew she really had not wanted to admit this to herself about her friend much less say it aloud.

"But," she said, smiling suddenly and hopefully, "maybe it could work. Maybe you could draw out a side of her and she could draw out a side of you. And—"

Murphy sat up and kissed her cheek. "Go ta bed and take the 'smoldering' one with you. God knows what you'll be doin' while I just masturbate, which I apparently don't do enough. I guess I'll have to start leavin' tissues around for inspection by the two of ya."

"You might be the one, Murph." She said, as though a new idea had crossed her mind, before she and Connor slipped out the door. Murphy knew she was saying this just because she felt as though she had said something unforgivable about her friend. There was nothing unforgivable about the truth, he knew.

He was just wishing now that he had listened more.

The very next weekend, Janey came up again from New Haven. He was more prepared for this visit, having worked his ass off through the week to get things done so he would not have to put them off until Sunday night. He felt as though he were on pins and needles the whole time with The Unified Front watching his every move. Janey snuck into his bedroom on Saturday night and he told her she had to go back to her own room--not that he didn't want her to be there--but things were going too quickly. Janey was all hungry kisses and yanking off her clothes and tearing at his and getting teary when he whispered that in no way shape or form should she consider this rejection, but this just had to go slower for both their sakes nor did he want to be castrated by the people probably listening at the door for any hanky panky. Leave it up to Connor to bug the fucking room. He convinced her to move out to the sunroom and he would make coffee. Connor stuck his head out of The Bedroom of the United Front aka The Bedroom of Incredible Sex Murphy Wasn't Having.

Probably the only time Connor ever wore the posh pajamas that Leah's mother had put in both their Christmas stockings, Murphy thought with a silent snicker, seeing the creases from the packaging. Murphy wore his pajamas practically every night. They got softer with each wash. Goddam healthy sex life. But it really was hard not to be happy for them. He had never seen two people so in love and love each other as much. And who deserved it more than his brother? Or Leah? But it was like he had told Murphy Major (and really, what moron called their dick "Little"?), they would find someone and be just as happy as his twin and Connor Minor. Leah was right. He wasn't jerking off a lot. Most nights he was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow and most mornings was too stressed to think about anything but school. Yes, it was true. Everyone's favorite undergrad slut hadn't had sex since before he started med school.

Murphy raised his brow slightly triumphantly, hiding his grin behind his coffee cup.

"We thought we heard a noise." Connor said, as the door cracked open a little further and Murphy saw Leah peeking out.

"Just havin some coffee and a chat. Didn't mean ta wake ya."

The Unified Front looked at each other, whispered something then Connor said, "Okay, 'Night."

He and Janey looked at each other and started laughing. They talked until the sun rose and then went out to breakfast, leaving Connor and Leah unknowing and asleep in their bed. He showed her some of his favorite places in the limited area of Cambridge where he spent his time. There was much more to see in Boston, but he sure had not had much time or energy left over to explore it. She asked him to come to New Haven the next weekend and he made it clear that he could not go out of town. Her PhD program sounded so flexible compared to medical school or even Leah's PhD program. Janey's research came out of books. New translations and interpretations of ancient literature. She didn't really talk about it that much. At first, she talked about where she wanted to travel, adventures she wanted to have, and mostly, how perfect Connor and Leah's relationship was. And she didn't even have to fuckin live with them, he thought without any resentment at all. Then she began to talk about everything under the sun. Sometimes he would just watch her instead of really listening. He liked her upturned nose, the way her shoulder length chestnut hair bounced when she talked animatedly (which was always) and how she seemed not to worry about anything. It relaxed him. Even if it was fucking cold, he started waiting on the porch for her to drive up in her little BMW convertible, dressed in another new outfit. Leah had explained this was a carryover from growing up in Plano, Texas, a posh suburb of Dallas, where it was important to look like a Barbie doll. But she had never dressed like this in college. Leah gave Connor a knowing look. But if Janey was happy, he decided, that was great. He would not, however, let her take him shopping and start dressing him up. He balked at flying to Texas—and no, he could buy his own plane ticket—and no, he was not going scuba diving in the Caymens with her and her family this summer. She just didn't understand that not everybody got to do a rotation with Lyle Jones in geriatric psychiatry and he sure was not going to miss it while the man was in Boston and willing to take him on as a student. What the hell did he know about scuba diving anyway?

"Leah, may I borrow my brother, please?"

The Unified Front looked suspicious but Leah left the room to head to the study. Connor pulled a couple of Guinness bottles out of the refrigerator, removed the caps and handed one to Murphy. An Irish checker at the market where Connor shopped recognized his Wexford accent and he could not bring himself to buy Belhaven anymore. They sat at the breakfast room table.

"So, Janey's coming this weekend." Murphy began.

"Yeah?"

"And so do we have to get a fuckin hotel room?" Murphy asked coldly. He had been trying to hold Janey off for about two months now but every time she came to town, she was getting more and more impatient and he was pretty fed up with Leah and Connor playing chaperone. "Because I don't want any commentary from Leah, snickering from you—just any shite period."

"Are you asking my permission to have sex with your girlfriend, ye retard?" Connor roared with laughter, making Murphy furious.

"Now look, you fucker, this is serious." He slammed his fist down on the table.

The smile disappeared from his brother's face. "Yes, actually, it is. You haven't slept with her before, have you?"

"No, and I don't know if I should do it at all." He groaned, draining his beer. He buried his face in his hands and groaned again.

"What the fuck, Murph?"

"I guess I'm just nervous. Her first time and all. And ever since that first weekend, she's been on about it and I guess I'm just a bit fucked up about it. And The Unified Front hasn't helped. You and Leah really have got ta fuck off about this."

He hoped his twin could not see that he was not telling him what was really bothering him: what if I never love her the way you love Leah?

"Ya know, Murph, Leah told me something that will probably make ya feel better and help ya be a little less nervous." Connor offered cautiously, pulling two more beers from the refrigerator.

"What's that?"

"It's called a speculum. When a woman has a PAP smear, they use it."

"Thanks for that lesson, Conn. I never noticed that during my gynecology rotation last month." He said sarcastically. "What the fuck are ye on about?"

"Leah said the first time won't hurt, ye bastard, because of the speculum."

"I think I'm just going ta go read now. I just had a really disturbing image of how retarded ya probably were the first time with Leah, and I really need to get rid of it." Murphy chuckled, ruffling Connor's hair. "I love ya, Connor. But sometimes, yer just—well, thanks for that encouraging talk. Very educational."

"Fuck ya, Murph."

But things apparently went well. Janey wasn't disappointed. Janey liked sex. A lot. And after a long dry spell, he wasn't complaining. But what the fuck was up with all the scratching and biting? Gently, he would whisper to her, trying to mollify her with kisses, hoping to soften this exchange, to make it feel natural, second nature and connected. Let me kiss you, Janey. Find my soul, he wanted to say to her. Please look closely and find it and love what you see. Somehow he just couldn't say it, especially when he felt her tongue go up his ass.

He knew he should be turned on but the first thing he thought of was his friend Robert at the hospital who was gay and was always cracking him up with stories about all sorts of hilarious shit, including rim jobs, and he felt like he was going to start laughing especially when he starting feeling like he might fart. After all, they had eaten some excellent hummus, falafel and tabouleh for dinner. And then there was the thought of every enteric bacteria in feces. He had always thought he had good hygiene but that was the poop chute. It's not like he wiped with a sewer snake the last time he took a dump. So he managed to say he was tired without laughing and suggested they shower. He assured Janey that gargling with the hydrogen peroxide he had run in and grabbed out of Connor and Leah's bathroom (Don't even fucking ask, he warned Connor who woke up) was something he did regularly. At least thirty seconds. He was pretty sure she wouldn't believe him about Clorox. God, hydrogen peroxide burned the throat like hell.

But why was he thinking about Janey right now? God, please let Leah be pregnant, he thought, as he crossed the threshold, holding a sealed manila envelope in his hand.

Leah leapt out of Connor's embrace from the window seat toward him. He saw the expectant, almost frantic look on her face and gave her a small nod and hopeful smile.

"Hungry, Murph?" Connor asked calmly, rising to his feet and heading to the kitchen. Murphy had a sudden mental image of his brother in the kitchen, his children around him and Connor loving every minute of it. Please let her be pregnant.

"Aye, famished. Have you been cooking like a madman tonight? Smells bloody fantastic in here." He asked, handing Leah the envelope stealthily with a wink and following his brother.

"Aye. Porcini mushrooms and pasta. Mascarpone cheese to thicken the sauce a bit. How was the hospital?"

"You're a regular Julia Child, Connor. Put you on the TV on one of those—"

"Connor!" Leah cried happily from the breakfast nook. "Come here. Come here."

His brother lost all reason when it came to his wife. He looked alarmed, dropped Murphy's plate and frantically ran to Leah, hollering, "Leah, luv, what's wrong? What's wrong?"

Murphy laughed to himself, leaning against the kitchen counter, as he watched his brother in the moment he discovered he would soon become a father. He felt his brother's joy and at the same time wished he had a camera to photograph this moment of them. Yet, he knew he would carry the image in his memory of their happiness with him for the rest of his days. Few times had he seen grace personified in his life, but this was one of them.

And then it was perfectly clear to him. He knew he would never look at Janey the way Connor looked at Leah. He knew he needed to break that off as gently but as quickly as possible.

Maybe he could blame it on the 250 pound woman. Maybe lunch would go well and she wouldn't be a turdhound.

"You knew before I did?" Connor said later that evening, while Leah talked to her parents on the phone.

"I didn't look at the results. But I encouraged her to have the pregnancy test. So maybe yes. Early symptoms were clearly manifest. But that's me job."

"And ya didn't tell. Ye bastard." Connor said without malice.

"Didn't want to dash your hopes if she wasn't, ya idiot."

"Bollocks, your dinner. Hang on."

"Conn, go talk to your in-laws. I can serve m'own dinner."

He laughed as he cleaned the mess on the wood plank floor that he and Connor had refinished soon after they had moved in. Connor's food was excellent, he thought, as he sat on the window seat and finished Connor's glass of wine. He could hear them both talking into the phone at the same time and grinned.

After talking to their mother, he was fairly certain that everyone in Ireland would know that she was going to be a grandmother by dawn. He had taken an earful from Ma about those damn Calvinists (Leah's parents) trying to raise the baby in their infernal religion. The baby was going to be christened in the family church where generations of MacManuses had been christened for hundreds of years, for fuck's sake. Yes, Mother. The look on Connor's face told him that he had received a similar speech. No doubt Ma was all butter and sugar to Leah. Ma could not get over several hurdles with Leah such as the fact that she was American, of Scottish descent, a non-church goer although Ma assumed she was a Presbyterian, and most of all, married to her son and had replaced her as the alpha female in his life. And then there was the not so slight problem that Leah had convinced Connor to elope, enlisting Murphy to go with them as a witness, and they were married by a justice of the peace, rather than a priest much less the parish priest at home. A few times when Ma had been on a real bender, she had gotten Leah on the phone and told her she didn't consider the marriage sacrosanct. Mrs. MacManus (Leah refused to call her Ma, which drove Ma absolutely mad), the only person you're hurting in this situation is your son. I could care less what you think of me. However, your son does care and I shudder to think what kind of mother could be so cruel to her child. I suggest you treat my husband and his brother for that matter with the respect they deserve. They are generous, conscientious, kind and so many things missing in people today. Treat me as you wish, but how dare you call our home and be abusive to the only people who would walk through fire for you. Do you realize how hard they work? Do you realize how much they love you? Do you even care? Murphy and Connor were sitting on the sofa stifling laughter as Leah slammed the phone down then glared at them and snapped her finger and pointed at each of them before she left the room. They crept toward the study where Leah had opened a small photo album on her desk she kept of pictures Murphy had made of them the day they were married. They found her crying and muttering: childish, insane, drunk, horrendous, jealous—Anything else? Connor cackled, kissing the back of her neck. She looked horrified. How about foul-tempered bitch, Murphy laughed. I'm sorry. That's your mother. It's absolutely true, Connor said. Just think though, when Murph gets married, someone else will get to share the burden.

Thanks, Leah, for making my life hell, Murphy would tell her. When Ma would call, he would get trapped on the phone for the bulk of the conversation. But Ma grew to respect Leah, because Leah would not put up with her shit nor would she let Connor. He seemed absolutely terrified of that thing she did snapping her finger and pointing at him while giving him a disapproving glance. Come to think of it, Murph wasn't fond of that look either.

"Aren't you gonna call and tell Janey?" Connor asked, as the three of them sat at the kitchen table. Connor's cheeks were bright red from so much wine.

He felt Leah's perennially omniscient eyes on him. Best to meet them head on, as he stood, putting his hands on her shoulders which he gave a gentle rub. "Ye should call and tell her tomorrow. She'll want to hear it from ya. It's pretty late anyway. Probably better get Da ta bed after lots of water and a few B-12 tablets. I've got some readin' t'do before tomorrow."

"I'm gonna be a Da!" Connor announced yet again. Connor jumped out of his chair and grabbed him. "You're gonna be an uncle! It's our first bub, Murph! Havin' a baby, Murph!"

"So happy for ya, Conn. But remember you're gonna feel like shite in the mornin' if ya don't get some water in ya and get your ass ta bed." He laughed, hugging his brother, after Connor had grabbed his hands and started spinning the two of them around. "Can't ya do anythin' with your husband, Leah? Other than make babies?"

"Get off him, Connor, so I can hug him too." She chuckled, pushing Connor out of the way. She put her arms around him in a hug that was warmer than anything Janey had ever given him. "Oh, Murph, thank you. Thank you for what you did today, for what you do everyday. You mean the world."

"Christ, woman. Pregnant a few weeks and yer already getting' emotional." He smiled into her face, then he decided to say something earnest. "And thank you for that hug. Been needin' one like that."


	17. ABBA Therapy

A/N: Thanks for everyone who has been reading and reviewing. The end is coming soon. Here's the penultimate chapter. Cheers, Bel.

"Connor, I think you should get up and go talk to Murph." She said after the kind of sex that made you quiver days later to merely think about it: sex with a drunk Connor.

He became so pliable and mindless. He wasn't trying to figure a new way to make her fall in love with him, to seduce her, to make her lose her mind. Oh Connor, always trying to please and always successful. But a drunk Connor was relaxed and all delighted sighs and surprised shivers. He would go on and on about how beautiful she was, and it sounded as though he were seeing her for the first time and would pull her to him almost desperately to kiss her and tell her he loved her. She loved it that he forgot to be quiet, and while their bedroom was on the other side of the house and Murphy swore he couldn't hear anything (although he loved to tease them mercilessly about it), it was wonderful to hear Connor uninhibited. It was gorgeous. To experience him let go of everything that preoccupied him, including his near obsession with her fulfillment, was intoxicating in itself. Absolutely gorgeous was the sound of his ecstasy. What a privilege, a joy, to be a part of it.

Well, and it was humorous too, because he did start speaking in different languages at random times, and she would think, "My husband is the Tower of Babel." Oh, that brilliant mind scrambled by too much wine was lovely indeed. And he was too preoccupied to notice her giggling.

"Honey?"

A grunt was all she received in response and closer snuggling. He had always been a shameless spooner and she loved it. "You need to go talk to Murph, honey."

"Murph?"

"Yes, ding dong. He needs a talk."

"'Bout what?"

"Oh, just go to sleep, you lovebug. I'll go be the little brother tonight."

"Big brother." He murmured sleepily in correction. "What's wrong with Murph?"

"I think he's realized Janey's not the one."

"She's going home with him at Christmas."

The perfect non-sequitur, albeit bringing to light a potential cataclysm, to come out of the mouth of sleepy, snuggly, drunk, well-fucked Connor. She just shook her head, smiling.

"Connor."

"Hmm?"

"Give me a kiss."

After he kissed her and she finally managed to disentangle herself, because he wasn't as sleepy as she had originally thought and was obviously thoroughly convinced that sex during pregnancy was perfectly safe, she began to move from the bed.

"Warm spot."

"Warm spot will be back soon." She laughed for a moment, lingering and brushing her fingertips over that beloved brow. "We're having a baby, Connor."

"Can't believe it, Leah. Wanted it for so long. Maybe since the second I saw you."

"Go to sleep, my love." She whispered. "My life."

"So how's that journal article?" she asked, walking into Murphy's room, where he was sitting at his desk. She was fairly certain he had not been reading. "Riveting?"

"Ya should be in bed." He answered, rubbing his eyes. "I don't need to tell ya how important sleep is for ya now."

So she hopped on his bed and patted the space next to her. But she could see he was not going to be cajoled so easily.

"Come here, Murph."

With that he approached and flopped down next to her then tilted his head and stared up at her with as much mischief as he could conjure in those sad eyes.

"So what are you thinking about tonight?" she asked him.

"My niece or nephew, of course. Could be twins, ya know. Another Connor and Murphy on yer hands. God help us all." He said, tapping her nose with his index finger.

"And some other things, I think." She said, taking his hand and lacing her fingers through his.

All of a sudden her eyes were met with a look she knew well from her husband, but when it came from Murphy, it was always broke her heart. She could protect Connor but Murphy was too often alone with his demons.

"I'll never love her as much as he loves ye. Leah, I'll never love her as much as I love ye, darlin'. For tha life of me, I can't figure out who she is. It's pretty obvious she doesn't care who I am. I don't think she even wants ta know." He said, ducking his head suddenly. "Leah, I'm sorry. Ye told me not ta do this. Ye told me."

"Don't apologize. You care. I've seen it. You've tried really hard. You made Mama proud."

"But ya told me."

She chuckled. "Maybe if you flagellate yourself a while you'll feel better. Seriously, you shouldn't feel too bad, Murph. Believe me. She has enjoyed the ride."

"Thin walls?" he asked, leaning back against her. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed the top of his head.

"That would have been much more preferable. No, dearie, the telephone. Graphic details I tried not to listen to."

"Holy hell." He groaned. "I'll have ya know that none of that crazy shite was my idea."

"Well, I didn't think so."

"She told you about all that stuff?"

"I don't know exactly what you're talking about but lately I kept finding myself saying, 'Too much information' to put a stop to it. She always wanted to tell me that she had read something to try and Connor would probably like it, and I would tell her I had to hang up."

They shared a laugh for a moment.

"I wanted ta love her, Leah. I really wanted to."

"I know, Murph." She hugged him to her tightly. "You did just fine. You just made one mistake."

"Aye?"

"You sold yourself short." She said. "ABBA anyone?"

Connor would throw up his hands when Leah turned on ABBA but never ceased to laugh when she and Murphy would sing all the lyrics at the top of their lungs on road trips to South Carolina. We're in a Volvo, ya retard, of course we're gonna listen to ABBA, Murphy would laugh, Sweden's two greatest creations. Connor just rolled his eyes when they would pop ABBA into the living room CD player and try to make him dance. One night he disappeared into their bedroom and came out wearing a pair of jeans which had grown too tight for him after his visits to the gym during his lunch hour every day, one of Leah's pajama tops that said "Miss Priss" on it (a joke from her mother) and one of her silk scarves tied around his neck then proceeded to grind up on the both of them to "Dancing Queen." Snot literally shot out of Murph's nose when he took a good look at his brother.

Making someone snarf their drink was victory enough in the house, but causing snottage was a triumph. Connor left the room to chalk a tick mark under his name on the board in the kitchen, where everyone who visited the house always asked what the tick marks under their initials meant and was always given a different answer.

Connor appeared at the corner of the living room in his boxer shorts, a knowing smile on his sleepy face, as they danced theatrically to 'Chiqitita', their arms in the air and skipping around the living room sofas. Murph saw him laugh and walk back into their bedroom.

"Go on to bed, Leah. I'm okay, I promise." He told her, as they sat on the sofa.

"I know." She answered but made no effort to leave him. "In fact, Murph, you're great. You know, when I got Connor, I got much more than the perfect husband. I got you too. You've become the person I used to only glimpse back in college."

"Ever wish you'd chosen me?"

"Not for a second." She said, kissing his cheek before leaving the room.


	18. Fly Away

A/N: Thanks to everyone who has been reading. This is the last chapter. I am writing a sequel which will not be under the Romance/Humor category. It will populated by my Connor, Murphy and Leah. But for now, let's leave them as they are. Love to you all, Bel.

"No staying late." Connor said, when Leah and Murphy dropped him off at the airport for an early flight to the Baltimore area. He and his partners had been contracted to consult for a large fishing operation on Chesapeake Bay that had been recently fined for pollution. "No later than five, Leah."

"Connor, I have to do my job. But I will be careful, honey. I always am, aren't I?"

"Your job never came with a stipulation you'd be working in the middle of crackhead gangland. Fuckin' Jamaica Plain. Couldn't they find a different place for that fuckin' arboretum?"

Connor and Murphy too continued to harp on her recent assignment to the Arnold Arboretum herbarium as part of her research project. They did not understand that the data she was collecting there would be crucial to the phylogeny that was a central part of her thesis. All they understood was what they heard on the news about the crime in the area.

Her PhD advisor had quickly become an extended member of the MacManus household and fortunately put up with abuse from the twins. At the ripe age of thirty-seven, it appeared that Rick was going to be the eternal bachelor, Stan his Portuguese water dog in tow at the lab and everywhere else including the field, taking DNA samples of rare and endangered plants endemic to the Eastern seaboard. Rick and Stan were regular fixtures at Chez MacManus, especially when Connor fired up the grill. Rick was well-versed in Irish ales which always seemed to arrive concurrently with him and Stan. He had spent a summer in Manaus, staying in the same dorms Connor had, and much of the germplasm for his post doc had been gathered from the rain forest in Costa Rica. He was a great fit with the twins. Leah would generally coop Stan and head into the study to focus on her coursework, especially when her prelims were eminent, only coming out to tell Rick that he was an evil man to subject her to such torture. Rick had offered Stan as a bodyguard for Leah to appease Connor and Murphy for her duration at the Arnold Arboretum. Connor and Murph grumbled but they would accept Stan and told Rick she would not be working past four in the afternoon, especially now that she was pregnant. She needed rest and it was utter bullshit that she was having to conduct tours of the fucking arboretum, Murphy groaned. Outreach is part of an NSF fellowship, Murph. You're pregnant, Leah! It's good exercise and Stan likes it. All those school kids with their germs are going to make you sick! I ate mudpies as a child, Murph. I'll be fine.

"I don't have to go. I can do a conference call." Connor told her, his hand hovering over his carry on bag, sitting in the trunk of his very sensible Toyota Camry he insisted she drive with its airbags, antilock brakes and who knows (and who cares) what else.

"You'll be gone three days, baby. And you'll have a good time. Go save the environment, Connor." She smiled at him, straightening his hair that had been cut so nicely by the stylist that her mother had found on her last trip up to Cambridge.

It had taken quite a bit of effort on her mother's part to drag Connor in to get a haircut that cost more than five dollars and involved more effort than clippers. She imagined it would take a special trip for her mother to get Murph in there.

"I hate leaving you like this. Pregnant and all." He said softly, leaning into her. "Okay, I just hate leaving you, truth be known."

"At least you're honest." She laughed into his neatly pressed cotton shirt.

She loved to iron Connor's shirts for some reason, as she generally hated all housework. However, when the brothers were at Mass, she always grabbed his clean pinpoint oxford shirts from the dryer and used lavender linen water to iron them. Seeing how Connor seemed to absolutely glow from the extra attention, she had gone shopping one day and had found a nice green tea scent for Murph's shirts, although Murph rarely wore anything but scrubs or a t-shirt. She remembered how he hadn't wanted to wash his shirt after finding it in his closet with his own linen water scent in it (he kept reminding Connor). You ironed my shirt. You put something that smells better than the stuff you put in Connor's in it. It's got a spot, Murph. It's got to go in the wash. I will iron it again. You don't have to. Just wash it, Murph. Oh, Murph, always appreciating the tiniest things. "Wear your sunscreen on the boat. And your hat."

"It's not as fun without you rubbing that crap over my face and sticking it up my nose." He chuckled, his hands dropping to her belly. "I think I feel a bump."

"I think that would be called Added Calories Compliments of Connor." She rolled her eyes. It was only three months into the pregnancy. "Look, silly, you've got to go check in. And The Incredible Hunk's got to get to the hospital and I've got to go pick up Stan for work."

Murphy laughed and growled, flexing extremely thin muscles.

"I'll call ya tonight."

"Of course you will. Come here, Connor." She said, pulling him closer. "Kiss me like it will be a million years before you see me again."

"Oh, that settles it. I'm not going—"  
"You are too. But kiss me like you mean it."

"As if I don't every time I kiss ya?"

"Time's wasting."

It was the kiss she wanted, as cars zipped in and out dropping off passengers for departing flights. The chaos around them disappeared and it was just Connor, her husband, the father of the life growing in her, the only man she had ever loved.

"I really think I should stay." He whispered, his eyes all fluttery and slightly disoriented, when she parted their lips finally.

"I love you, Connor. So so much." She laughed, closing the trunk and walking away from him.

"Leah, you really think I should go?"

"If he weren't so lucky, I'd feel bad for him." Murph laughed, as Leah drove away, leaving Connor standing at the doors of the airport looking absolutely dumbfounded.

"Don't feel bad for him. Isn't that the funniest sight though?" She laughed, then the cell phone rang. "I love you too--No, you have to go—No, we are not turning around. Now call me tonight. I love you, sweetheart."

She and Murphy grinned at each other when she hung up the phone.

"You've made me brother stupid, Leah. Absolutely stupid." Murphy laughed, as the sun began to rise. "Do ya realize how easily it could have been me?"

"You do a good enough job on your own."

"Cruel woman. So how do ya feel this morning?"

A/N: The end for now. At least a few hours anyway…


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